


Compromised

by LadySokolov



Series: The Devil You Know [2]
Category: Watch Dogs (Video Games)
Genre: Angst and Porn, Breaking and Entering, Canon-Typical Violence, Communication Failure, Consent Issues, Emotional Constipation, Explicit Language, From Sex to Love, Human Trafficking, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Not Involving the Main Characters Though, Oral Sex, Pining, Porn with Feelings, Shameless Smut, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Use Your Words Aiden
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-01-05 08:10:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 56,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12186219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadySokolov/pseuds/LadySokolov
Summary: One time with Jordi Chin should have been enough. It wasn't.Now Aiden and Jordi are stuck navigating a twisted web of a relationship that neither of them are quite prepared for. Lives will be lost, preconceptions shattered and two men will travel halfway across the country before this particular mess gets sorted out.





	1. Enthusiastic Consent

**Author's Note:**

> So this is, finally, a continuation of Trust Me. You might want to read that before starting Compromised.
> 
> There is going to be a lot of sex and emotions coming up, as well as a lot of Aiden just being generally confused and bad at interacting with other people. I hope you all enjoy reading the fic as much as I enjoyed writing it. I really did miss these assholes. :)

 

Aiden had thought that one time with Jordi Chin would be enough. By all rights it should have been enough.

It wasn’t.

Every time Aiden’s phone rang after what he privately thought of as ‘The Jordi Incident’, he half-expected it to be the fixer, making good on his threat of calling on Aiden for a booty call. Aiden had already decided that if and when that happened, Aiden, with all of the maturity, self-respect and control that he possessed, would politely decline the offer. He would not, despite what his instincts at the time might insist, tell Jordi to go fuck himself, or, and this was possibly much more likely and infinitely worse, immediately give in and agree to have sex with Jordi again.

But Jordi did not call, either in pursuit of sex or with the offer of another job. With every day that passed Aiden found himself growing more and more frustrated. After all, Jordi was the one who had made the first move, and Jordi was the one who had suggested that the two of them might fuck again. If Jordi was so interested in Aiden then why hadn’t the fixer contacted him?

Aiden suspected he did not masturbate as much as the average male, but even by his standards it was a long time between The Incident and the next time he actually allowed himself to jerk off, mostly because he was afraid that when he did he would be plagued by the memory of Jordi’s body on top of his own, Jordi’s hands and mouth roaming all over him, the purr of Jordi’s voice as he demanded that Aiden beg for him.

After two weeks of denying himself Aiden finally gave in and discovered that his fears were well-founded. When he closed his eyes he found that he could not escape the memory of Jordi’s wicked smile. He ached for the other man’s touch, and when he came it was to the thought of Jordi’s mouth wrapped around his cock, and the other man’s name on his lips.

And still Jordi did not call him.

Several times Aiden found himself staring at Jordi’s contact information on his phone, his thumb hovering over the call button.

 _Why do I even want to call him?_ Aiden asked himself. _Even if I did, what the hell would I say? ‘Please Jordi; I desperately want you to fuck me again’? Of course not. Even if I was that weak and desperate, which I am not, admitting as much to Jordi would be a monumental mistake._

Revealing such a weakness to Jordi would be as good as admitting that the other man had won. Hell, even contacting Jordi in the first place would mean that he had won and Aiden had lost.

Aiden wasn’t even sure the other man knew they were at war. He had to though, didn’t he? He had to know what his silence was doing to Aiden. Surely Jordi was just waiting for Aiden to contact him, and that insufferable Cheshire cat grin would break out on his face the moment he saw Aiden’s number on his phone. Surely Jordi was getting off to memories of The Incident as well; of Aiden, desperate and broken beneath him.

Weeks passed, and Aiden only grew more and more frustrated. In the end it was two whole months before he heard from Jordi again; two months of pining and hatred and attempting and ultimately failing to keep Jordi out of his mind.

When Jordi rang up he didn’t even mention the possibility of them fucking again. He explained quite calmly and professionally that he needed a hacker for his current job, gave Aiden the details and then hung up, without flirting or joking with Aiden once.

In the two days between the call and the job itself Aiden found himself growing nervous, not because of the mission, but because there was no getting around the fact that he would have to actually deal with Jordi and the almost overwhelming tension that The Incident had left between them.

In the end the mission went off without a hitch. Aiden had expected the same level of violence and chaos that their last mission together had brought about, but Jordi managed to put a bullet through the head of his target and the two of them had escaped before security had even realised they were there.

And the whole time Jordi acted as though nothing between the two of them had changed. He joked. Of course he joked. If he hadn’t then Aiden would have been even more worried than he already was. Jordi waltzed through the whole mission with more flare than Aiden thought appropriate or safe, he laughed and teased and clearly enjoyed pulling the trigger on his target more than a sane person should, but he never flirted with Aiden or brought up that night by the river.

It was driving Aiden crazy. He wished that Jordi would just talk about The Incident or make a pass at him and get it over with already.

Soon enough the mission was over however. The two of them stood by the side of the road, Jordi having just finished wiring Aiden’s pay to his account. Aiden was so tense he felt like he could barely breathe.

“Well, that was fun,” Jordi said, nodding at Aiden and heading for the sleek, undoubtedly stolen sports car that was waiting for him, “and profitable. See you next time Pearce.”

“Wait,” Aiden cried out, unable to take the tension any longer.

“Hrm?” Jordi paused, one hand already on the top of the car’s open driver-side door, and raised an eyebrow in Aiden’s direction.

“Aren’t you…” Aiden began, finding the words getting stuck in his throat. “You know…”

He gestured vaguely, unable to bring himself to say the actual words. Jordi had to have been thinking the same thing though, right? No doubt Jordi was fucking loving watching Aiden squirm, and relishing every moment of discomfort that his silence was bringing the hacker.

However, when Aiden looked at Jordi he discovered that the fixer just looked confused.

“Aren’t we going to…?” Aiden tried again.

Jordi still wasn’t getting it. He just stood there staring at Aiden as though the hacker wasn’t making any sense to him at all.

“Shit, no, that’s not what I meant to say,” Aiden quickly backtracked when he realised that in a certain light his previous words could have been seen as a proposition.

“I mean, aren’t _you_ going to…?”

“Don’t hurt yourself Pearce,” Jordi joked. “Aren’t I going to… what exactly?”

“Aren’t you going to ask me if…” Aiden was growing frustrated. Somehow Jordi was making him feel like an embarrassed teenager, grappling with his attraction to men for the very first time. It was humiliating; perhaps even more than it had been when the two of them had actually fucked.

Jordi had now crossed his arms in front of his chest, and was still looking at Aiden as though the hacker was speaking in a language that he didn’t understand. Surely Jordi knew what he was trying to say though? The bastard was just standing there letting Aiden make a fool of himself. No doubt he was finding the whole thing absolutely fucking hilarious.

“Aren’t you going to ask me if I want to fuck!?” Aiden said, the words exploding from his mouth far louder than he had intended them to. It was still only late afternoon, just after peak hour, and several people turned to stare at Aiden after his outburst.

Jordi’s brows shot up. For a few seconds he continued to just stare at Aiden, as though the hacker’s words had stunned him, and then the corners of his mouth twitched slowly upwards into that god-awful, shit-eating grin that Aiden hated so much.

Jordi leaned back against his car and began to laugh.

Aiden groaned. Of course Jordi would find the whole thing hilarious. He had won after all. He had succeeded in making Aiden act like a desperate fucking idiot.

“Holy shit Pearce,” Jordi finally said, wiping away tears of laughter from the corner of his eyes. “You’ve been worried about that this whole fucking time, haven’t you?”

Aiden rolled his eyes at the other man. It was his turn now to fold his arms in front of his chest and just stare at his opponent.

“You know,” Jordi said, still grinning widely. “Maybe if you tried asking me nicely…”

“I wasn’t… I wasn’t _asking_ ,” Aiden muttered, annoyed that Jordi would even think such a thing. “Asshole. It’s just after last time I thought that you would…”

He shrugged, not wanting to say any more than he already had. He had already made enough of a fool of himself for one day. He waited for more teasing, or for Jordi to reveal that he had, after all, known what Aiden had been leading up to and had been loving every painful second of it. When Jordi finally did speak however he didn’t say what Aiden had expected him to.

“You assumed I was going to hit on you again. Why?” Jordi asked, all trace of that shit-eating grin having disappeared from his face. “You know something Pearce, as fun as that evening was, and I mean, it was really fun, I’ll give you that; we are fucking amazing at having sex; but yeah, as fun as it was, if I’m remembering things correctly, you didn’t seem all that keen on a repeat performance. In fact, when I mentioned the idea you said something like, and correct me if I’m wrong ‘don’t get your hopes up.’”

Aiden cringed as the other man’s hands finished forming quotation marks around the words. He had said that, hadn’t he? But he had expected Jordi to be as annoyingly persistent and inconsiderate of others’ feelings when it came to sex as he was with everything else. In fact Aiden had feared that he would have been fighting off an amorous Jordi for months or perhaps even years to come. The fact that he wasn’t was almost… well… disappointing.

“I thought…” Aiden began, before he realised there was no way he could finish that sentence and still keep his dignity intact, and ended up just shrugging instead.

“You thought what?” Jordi asked.

“I mean, I didn’t hate it,” Aiden conceded.

He had expected Jordi to laugh at him again, but instead Jordi seemed to be even more annoyed and frustrated by the situation than Aiden was.

“Jesus fucking Christ Pearce…” he cursed beneath his breath. “You’ve been waiting for me to ask, haven’t you? Not just today I mean. You’ve been waiting for me to actually make good on that booty call; the booty call that you pretty much turned down as soon as I suggested it.”

Suddenly Aiden found it very hard to meet Jordi’s eyes.

“Well you know something Pearce?” Jordi continued. “I’m not a fucking mind-reader, okay? It’s been what… a couple of months since we fucked? You could have… you could have picked up the phone at any fucking time you liked and called me and said ‘oh hey Jordi; why don’t we fuck again?’”

He could have, but then Jordi would have won.

“Or maybe you could have, I don’t know,” Jordi continued, throwing his hands up in the air as he did, “admitted that you actually fucking enjoyed yourself. Just an idea Pearce.”

Aiden didn’t know what Jordi expected him to say. It was possible that Jordi had a point, but there was no way that Aiden was actually going to admit that, and certainly not to Jordi’s face.

“You know what?” Jordi said, finally getting up from where he had been leaning against the car. “Fuck all of this. Get in the car.”

“What?” Aiden asked.

“Get in the car,” Jordi repeated. “Or, I don’t know, fucking leave or something, but I am not continuing this conversation in the middle of the fucking street where everyone can hear us. Pretty sure we’ve already scandalized one old man and there is a mother who passed us a moment ago who is probably going to have fun explaining what a booty call is to her six year old, so either get in the fucking car or leave and promise me right now that we’re not going to have this same awkward conversation the next time we work together.”

Jordi slipped into the driver’s seat, opened the passenger door rather roughly and then sat there waiting for Aiden.

Aiden wasn’t a fool. He knew that if he got into the car with Jordi then they would probably end up having sex again. If he left now then he could say farewell to the whole mess, pretend that The Jordi Incident never happened and get on with his lonely, sexless life once more.

He took a deep breath and glanced inside the car to find Jordi’s eyes watching him closely. He was instantly transported back to the river bank, to Jordi thrusting deep within him and watching him with those dangerously dark eyes.

Aiden got into the car and slammed the door shut behind him.

* * *

The first few minutes of the drive were almost completely silent. Jordi gripped the wheel tightly, his mouth and brow fixed into a more pronounced frown than Aiden felt comfortable seeing on the other man’s face.

Eventually Jordi sighed and turned the car’s radio on. Loud, heavy RnB began to blare over the speakers. Aiden simply sat there, arms once again crossed in front of his chest, and wondered how dealing with Jordi had suddenly become even more painful and difficult than it had been before.

He didn’t know where Jordi was taking him. He supposed it didn’t matter. No matter where they ended up things were inevitably going to be awkward and terrible and Aiden would spend the whole time wishing that he was somewhere else, with the possible exception of during the sex itself; the sex that might not even happen if Jordi’s current anger was any indication.

They had made it halfway across the city by the time Jordi pulled up in front of a seemingly random high-rise and turned the engine off. After the blaring music that had accompanied them through the drive the relative quiet seemed deafening.

“So,” Jordi began, drawing the word out and drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, his anger, or at least most of it, having apparently already dissipated. “You want to come up?”

Aiden glanced over at the high rise that they had parked next to. It looked like a pretty expensive establishment, but he had always assumed that Jordi would live in luxury. What surprised him was the thought that Jordi might actually be willing to show Aiden where he lived.

“You have a room here?” he asked.

Jordi scoffed at that.

“Not permanently,” he said, and Aiden was surprised to realise how relieved he was to see Jordi’s familiar smirk returning to his face. “I just happen to know that the douchebag who owns one of the penthouse suites here won’t be using it for at least, I dunno… forever, considering I killed him a few days ago. I’m sure he won’t mind us borrowing the place for a few hours.”

Aiden shrugged.

“Is that a yes?” Jordi asked. “Come on Pearce, give me something to work with here. You really need to be more vocal about what it is you actually want.”

“Yes, all right?” Aiden snapped in reply. “I would like to come up. I’m not actually agreeing to anything other than talking just yet, but yes. For fuck’s sake, yes.”

“All right,” Jordi replied, slinking out of the car with far more grace than Aiden was comfortable with.

Aiden followed Jordi as the fixer waltzed through the front door of the building. Aiden got his phone out and began scanning the local security and double-checking that no-one was going to challenge their right to be there.

When they reached the elevator Jordi tapped him on the shoulder.

“Do you mind?” he asked, gesturing to the key card reader that guarded the elevator door. Aiden rolled his eyes at the other man, but then it was only a matter of moments before he had hacked the key-card reader and the elevator doors opened to allow them inside.

Another quick hack had the elevator taking them up to the penthouse. Jordi’s earlier annoyance appeared to have disappeared, but that did not make the silent trip up in the elevator any less tense.

Jordi stood beside him, tapping his hands in time to the rather generic tune that filtered through the elevator’s speakers.

“So Pearce,” Jordi began after what already felt like far too long a journey. “You want me to fuck you.”

Aiden spluttered, trying to object or think of some sort of response that wouldn’t just result in Jordi humiliating him even more than he already had.

“Again,” Jordi added before Aiden could say anything at all.

The elevator came to a stop, the doors opening with a chime into the middle of an open plan suite that must have been worth several million dollars.

Jordi stepped out into an ocean of white and black leather and fur, passed a kitchen bathed in flawless stainless steel and headed towards full length windows that afforded the apartment a beautiful view of the city beyond.

Aiden stumbled out after him, cursing Jordi’s apparently effortless grace and his ability to make Aiden feel off-balance.

“This is nice,” Jordi commented.

Aiden had to agree. The previous owner obviously hadn’t spent much time at home. The place was relatively spotless. There was a half-empty bottle of scotch by the sofa, and a leather jacket had been left lying on the floor, but apart from that there were very few signs that anyone had lived there at all. It might as well have been a display home from a brochure.

Aiden moved to the kitchen. A mostly empty box from the local Chinese takeout place had been left on the bench, wooden chop-sticks still sticking out and a less than pleasant smell emerging from the small container. He screwed up his nose and picked up the waste between two fingers, depositing it in the nearby bin.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Jordi asked. “You steal a place like this you’re supposed to trash it, not clean it up.”

“What?” Aiden replied, finding Jordi watching him with an amused grin on his face. “It smelled.”

Jordi shook his head.

“You can be so weird sometimes Pearce. You know that right?”

Jordi moved to the smaller of the apartment’s two fridges and emerged with two cans of surprisingly cheap beer considering the nature of the apartment itself.

“So,” he began, passing one of the cans to Aiden. “We need to talk about us.”

“What are we?” Aiden snapped as he accepted the can from Jordi. “A married couple having relationship problems? No we don’t.”

He considered the can of beer in his hand for a moment before placing it down on the nearest bench. This conversation was undoubtedly going to be awkward and embarrassing enough without adding alcohol to the mix, especially cheap, shitty beer.

“Pearce,” Jordi said, that one word carrying enough weight that Aiden suddenly felt ashamed, although he had no idea exactly what it was that he was ashamed about.

Jordi sighed as he opened the can in his hand. Aiden watched in shock as Jordi skulled the whole thing in one go and then slammed the empty can down on the bench next to Aiden’s still full and unopened one.

“You are fucking unbelievable,” Jordi exclaimed. “You know what Aiden? I am going to ask you something. It’s not going to be a fucking trick question, so I expect a straight answer. Just yes or no. That should not be fucking difficult, right?”

Aiden nodded. He suspected he could guess the nature of the question if not the exact wording of it, and it made him anything but comfortable. He felt as though a stone was settling in the base of his throat, making even the simple act of swallowing suddenly difficult. Answering honestly would be giving in, admitting something that he was not comfortable admitting even to himself just yet.

“All right,” Jordi began. He took a deep breath and then stared right at Aiden.

“Did you enjoy it when we fucked?” Jordi asked.

“Yes,” Aiden replied.

“Did you want to fuck again?” Jordi asked. “With me.”

Aiden had only agreed to answer one question, and he found this one a little less easy to answer than the last. He knew the answer of course; he just didn’t want to actually say it.

He took a deep breath and then, looking straight at Jordi despite how uncomfortable it made him, he replied.

“Yes.”

His mouth felt too dry, his skin too sensitive beneath his clothing. Jordi looked at him and grinned and Aiden felt as though he was naked again.

“All right,” Jordi said. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

He stepped forward, every step so deliberate and elegant and Aiden hated it.

Jordi came to a stop right in front of Aiden, and lifted one hand to cup the side of the hacker’s face. Aiden felt his heart speeding up in response, and before he knew what he was doing he was closing his eyes and pressing into the touch. His breathing was too heavy and his cock was already half-hard. It was just one touch. It shouldn’t have affected him so much.

He opened his eyes to find Jordi staring at him, his breathing just as heavy as Aiden’s own.

“Hey,” Jordi whispered. “You wanna find a bed?”

“Yes,” Aiden replied, surprised by how low and breathy his voice had already become.

“You sure?” Jordi said, leaning in closer. Aiden was about ready to snap at the other man, at least until he realised Jordi wasn’t double or well… triple-checking with Aiden so much as planning something mischievous.

Jordi stepped closer to Aiden, backing him up until the fixer found himself pinned between Jordi and the cold, stainless-steel covered kitchen bench.

“If you want I could fuck you right here,” Jordi said, pressing up against Aiden and slipping a leg between Aiden’s own.

Aiden groaned. Now that Jordi had his knee against Aiden’s groin there was no way that the fixer could have failed to notice how turned on Aiden already was.

“Shit Pearce,” Jordi murmured as he practically collapsed against Aiden. “You’re rreeeaaallly into this, aren’t you?”

He leaned into Aiden then, burying his face in the crook of Aiden’s neck. Aiden heard the other man inhale, felt what he had a sneaking suspicion was Jordi pulling the fabric of Aiden’s mask back from his neck to expose the skin beneath, and then felt the other man mouthing at the freshly uncovered skin in a gesture somewhere between a bite and a kiss.

Aiden groaned again, tried to protest Jordi’s assumption, but it was pointless when his body seemed so eager to betray him at every turn. Aiden’s hands came up, seemingly without his permission, to tangle in Jordi’s hair and pull the fixer closer.

Jordi stumbled a little, but then managed to use one hand to steady himself against the bench behind Aiden. His other hand slipped behind Aiden and made itself at home in one of his jacket’s back pockets. His mouth continued to nip and suck at Aiden’s neck, right below his pulse point. Aiden pressed against the other man’s leg, trying to get more friction, already so far gone that nothing seemed to matter anymore but Jordi, and somehow getting the other man inside of him once more.

“Shit Pearce,” Jordi cursed again. “Shit.”

He managed to pull back just a bit so that he could look Aiden in the eyes. Aiden realised that sometime during the exchange his hat had been knocked off and now lay in the middle of the kitchen floor.

Jordi panted as he started at Aiden. The hacker wondered how dishevelled he looked; whether Jordi’s ravishes had already made a mess of him. Jordi must have liked whatever he saw, because he chuckled and smiled at Aiden as though he knew he had already well and truly won this war between them.

“Just so you know,” Jordi hummed, leaning so close to Aiden once more that the hacker half-expected the other man to kiss him. Aiden’s tongue darted out to moisten his lips almost reflexively in anticipation of what was surely to come.

“I’ve left a pretty obvious mark on your neck,” Jordi said with an annoyingly large grin on his face.

Aiden frowned, finding himself tensing up at the mere idea of Jordi leaving any sort of visible mark on him. How fucking dare he? Aiden Pearce was not anyone’s fucking property, least of all Jordi Chin’s.

Aiden nearly pushed the other man away completely, but then he remembered that his neck wouldn’t be visible in most of the jackets and masks that he wore. It was annoying, but perhaps not as big of a deal as he had originally feared it would be. His hands ended up gripping the lapels of Jordi’s suit and he considered them for a moment, resting there on Jordi’s chest like he was actually fucking enjoying being close to the other man.

“Come on,” he said, pushing Jordi away after all, although the shove was a lot more gentle than he had originally thought it was going to be. “Let’s find that damned bed.”

* * *

Locating the bed proved relatively easy. What passed as the bedroom in such an open plan space was on a loft-like second level that looked down both on the rest of the penthouse and on the city below. The bed itself was easily twice the size of a king, and was covered in a white, fluffy blanket and a hoard of black and white pillows of assorted shapes and sizes.

Jordi removed his clothes as soon as they reached the side of the bed, throwing all of them to the ground with a surprising amount of focus, seemingly more concerned with getting naked than with putting on any sort of a show for Aiden. It didn’t matter. Aiden was already well and truly seduced, and found that he couldn’t stop staring at the other man regardless.

By the time a very naked Jordi flopped back onto the bed with a pleased-sounding sigh, Aiden had only succeeded in removing his gloves, jacket and trousers.

Jordi sat back up and gazed at Aiden, who stood there, still wearing a t-shirt and boxer briefs and yet somehow feeling far more naked and exposed than Jordi. Aiden found his gaze drifting to the other man’s cock, which showed mild signs of arousal, but not the full-blown erection that was making itself known through the fabric of Aiden’s underwear.

“Come here,” Jordi said, rolling his eyes and then grabbing Aiden by the bottom of his shirt. The hacker tried to stabilize himself, but soon he was falling on top of Jordi; Jordi who had orchestrated the whole thing and was still grinning like the irritating idiot that he was.

“You need to get rid of the rest of your clothes Pearce,” Jordi said as he started to pull Aiden’s pants down.

“I was going to,” Aiden said through gritted teeth as Jordi threw Aiden’s underwear across the room. “Fucking asshole…”

Jordi just chuckled at that, and before long he was slipping his hands beneath Aiden’s shirt to caress his stomach, and leaning up to press his lips against Aiden’s, devouring the other man’s mouth and causing any objection Aiden might have voiced to disappear in an instant.

There was passion in that kiss; more than there had been the last time; enough to make Aiden’s heart skip a few beats and to tear the breath from his lungs. Dear god, he needed Jordi. He needed him so badly and he hated everything about that; hated how week Jordi was somehow able to make him.

He heard a groan and a whimper emerge from his own throat. He realised his hands had moved to gently hold Jordi’s head, his fingers running through the other man’s hair, his touch light, as though the fixer was something special, and not the irritating psychopath that Aiden knew him to be.

Jordi pulled back from the kiss just long enough to grin at Aiden and, gripping Aiden’s shirt in both of his hands, said, “this needs to go as well.”

Aiden watched the shirt fall, and unlike his underwear he was still able to spot it afterwards. It lay there in the centre of the bedroom floor and stared back at Aiden, a completely innocent bystander in all of this, which was more than Aiden could say for himself or for the man whose bare chest he was pressed against.

What the fuck was he doing? He was naked in front of Jordi again. Jordi, who had been nothing but a constant source of irritation in Aiden’s life. Jordi, whose hands were even at that moment running slowly down Aiden’s back, his fingertips leaving a trail like fire everywhere they passed. Jordi, who was wringing moan after moan from Aiden’s throat by biting and sucking at a particular point on Aiden’s shoulder.

“Fuck,” Aiden gasped, not sure whether he was cursing from pleasure or just in frustration.

This was all so stupid. He wanted this. He did. He wanted it so fucking much.

He just wished that he didn’t.

“Pearce,” Jordi whispered right in Aiden’s ear as he gave both of Aiden’s ass cheeks a squeeze.

“Mmm?” Aiden replied, arching his neck as he did, trying to get Jordi’s mouth to resume what it had been doing to him a few moments earlier.

Jordi didn’t say anything, just responded by flopping back on the bed. His hands stayed right where they were on Aiden’s ass, effectively holding him in place on top of Jordi’s lap. Aiden tried to lean down, hungry for another kiss or two, but Jordi removed one of his hands from Aiden’s ass in order to press it against Aiden’s chest and stop him in his tracks before he could even make it halfway.

“Nope,” he told Aiden.

“Fuck off Jordi. Why not?”

“Because I have plans for how this little rendezvous of ours is going to go,” Jordi said, practically purring the words.

The hand that was still on Aiden’s ass gave it a tight squeeze; enough to wring another cry from Aiden’s throat.

“You’re going to ride me,” Jordi said, sounding so fucking sure of himself that at least part of Aiden wanted to punch him.

“Fuck you,” Aiden muttered.

Jordi’s grin in that moment was the most infuriating, awful thing that Aiden had seen in a very long time.

“That’s the idea,” Jordi said.

The smart thing to do would probably be to get up off the bed and walk away in that moment; see how Jordi felt just lying there unfulfilled, but Aiden was already almost painfully hard. Perhaps it would be easier, just this one time, to sacrifice his pride for the sake of release.

“Damn it,” Aiden cursed, hanging his head, unwilling to look Jordi in the eye.

Jordi just raised an eyebrow at him and gave his rear another squeeze, before bucking up a little, his own erection pressing against the curve of Aiden’s rear.

“Come on Pearce,” Jordi said. “You want this, right? Show me how much you want it.”

Fuck it. Fuck Jordi. Fuck everything. Aiden wasn’t going to say that again though; not after how swiftly Jordi had managed a retort the last time.

“Fuck,” Aiden cursed, unable to stop at least that one word from slipping out. He told himself that it was a gesture of defiance, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t at all. If anything it was defeated resignation.

He pushed himself up off Jordi’s legs, just enough for him to hover above Jordi for a while. He reached back, his hand finding the other man’s erection and guiding it to his rear.

“Holy shit Pearce,” Jordi gasped. “Are you even going to… fuck!”

He took the first inch or so of Jordi’s length inside him, biting his lip as he did.

“Shit Pearce,” Jordi cursed. “You’re just going to take me without preparing yourself properly or anything? What the fuck is wrong with you, you crazy, fucking…”

Aiden pushed down a little then, forcing more of Jordi inside of himself.

“Holy fuck…” Jordi gasped. “You’re so tight Aiden. Shit.”

Aiden grinned down at the other man. If Jordi wanted to play dirty then he should have expected Aiden to play dirty as well. He was sore, but the reaction from Jordi had been more than worth it.

Aiden forced himself to relax and slowly slid down until he was completely seated on Jordi’s cock. It was bigger than he remembered, although it could have just been his haste and the lack of preparation that was making it feel so big.

Once Jordi’s cock was completely buried inside of him Aiden just sat there for a moment, hands on Jordi’s chest, and allowed himself some time to grow used to the feeling of the other man’s cock stretching him.

“You are completely crazy Pearce,” Jordi breathed out. “You know that, you asshole?”

“You wanted me to ride you,” Aiden replied.

He tried to smirk down at the other man, and for a moment he was afraid that his smirk would not be as obnoxious or powerful as the other man’s, but whatever he managed it seemed to be enough. Jordi froze for a moment, and looked up at Aiden as though trying to work the hacker out. It wasn’t a look that Aiden was used to seeing on Jordi’s face. Usually it seemed as though Jordi understood Aiden perfectly and could see straight through him.

It was a nice change of pace, and Aiden couldn’t stop his smile from growing wider.

Jordi’s hands came to settle on either of Aiden’s hips, and then his lower torso arched up, thrusting into Aiden despite the fact that he was already about as deep as he could go. It was too much considering how quickly Aiden had taken the other man inside of him. He gasped and found himself leaning on Jordi for support.

“Come on Pearce,” Jordi said with another strong roll of his hips. “Why am I still the one doing all the work here, huh?”

Aiden screamed and almost fell on top of Jordi. The pain wasn’t fading. Not yet. It would take a while longer for his body to adjust to the intrusion of the other man’s cock, but the pain _was_ merging with the pleasure in a way that was doing nothing to lessen Aiden’s erection. If anything he was harder now.

He didn’t know what that meant. Was the simple knowledge that the other man was inside him once more really enough on its own to bring him such satisfaction? Part of him knew that the answer was yes, but he tried very hard to ignore that part of him and instead focussed on keeping his balance as Jordi thrust up into him once more.

“God Pearce,” Jordi muttered as one of his hands moved to wrap around Aiden’s cock. “This is getting you so hard, isn’t it?”

He stroked Aiden’s length, and Aiden immediately closed his eyes, not sure that he could stand looking down and seeing the other man’s hand wrapped around his cock.

“It isn’t going to be very long at all before you’re coming for me, is it Pearce?”

Damn it. Jordi was right. Even the sound of the other man’s voice was almost too much.

Jordi was moving his hips in constant short thrusts now, his cock moving just a couple of inches out of Aiden’s ass and then slamming back in each and every time.

“Pearce,” Jordi whispered, his voice far more hypnotic than it had any right to be. “Open your fucking eyes Pearce. Look at me.”

Aiden wanted to resist that command, and yet he found himself immediately opening his eyes and gazing down at the other man. He glanced down, and nearly came right then and there when he saw Jordi’s hand running up and down his hard cock. Instead he shut his eyes and reopened them, this time staring almost right into Jordi’s eyes.

It was almost as dangerous; those deep, dark pools drawing in Aiden in a way that was so much more intimate than the hand on his dick or the other man’s cock in his rear.

Up until that moment one of Jordi’s hands had stayed on Aiden’s hip, stabilizing him as the other man thrust up into him, but then it moved, slipping back to squeeze and toy with Aiden’s rear once more.

Aiden floundered and almost fell forward, but then his hands caught Jordi’s shoulders. He began to push back against the other man’s thrusts, needing them deeper and harder, as deep as they had gone when Jordi’s hands had been keeping him in place.

“You know,” Jordi murmured. “You can’t… can’t just wait for everyone to give you what you want babe.”

‘Babe’ was a problem. Aiden should probably object to the pet name, but he couldn’t bring himself to, not when Jordi’s hands were making him feel so fucking good, stroking his cock and kneading his rear and making him feel like a gun with a finger on its trigger, about to go off at any moment. All it would take was one more tiny squeeze and then he would go off; a miniscule but spectacular explosion of violence and chaos, and, much like his relationship with Jordi, sure to hurt someone in the nearby vicinity.

“Sometimes,” Jordi continued, his left hand giving Aiden’s rear a particularly tight squeeze as he did. “Hell, most times… you’ve got to… got to actually ask for it at least.”

Aiden frowned down at Jordi, but judging by the way the other man’s shuddered in pleasure and then rolled his hips up into Aiden the frown did not have the desired effect.

“We could have been…” Jordi gasped, looking as though he was just as close to losing himself as Aiden was. “We could have fucked each other so many times if you had just… oh fuck… if you were just fucking honest and told… told me that you… fuck… that you wanted me…”

Aiden groaned and pushed forward into the hand that was wrapped around his cock, and then back into the hand on his arse and the cock that was filling him so fucking perfectly. He couldn’t even tell the pleasure from the pain anymore.

“But I didn’t want…” Aiden began, and knew, even as the words left his mouth that it was a terrible lie.

Jordi just laughed. He then arched up and gently bit the bottom of Aiden’s mouth.

“Bullshit,” he said as their mouths parted from one another again.

Jordi moved his hands so that were once more gripping Aiden by the hips. Aiden cried out, missing the feeling of the other man’s long, skilful fingers wrapped around his cock, but soon forgot all about that when Jordi started to thrust hard and fast into Aiden, his cock pulling halfway out of Aiden and then thrusting back in so quickly and with such force that Aiden could barely think.

Jordi arched up again, his mouth hovering no more than an inch or two away from Aiden’s ear.

“You fucking love this,” he whispered. “Don’t even try to deny it Pearce.”

He rolled his hips against Aiden’s rear then in several long, slow thrusts that had Aiden seeing stars and crying out in pleasure with every thrust.

“You fucking love having me inside you,” Jordi continued to whisper.

Aiden wanted to fight it; wanted to deny what Jordi said, but god, it would be such a blatant lie when he had been picturing this, or at least something like it, every time that he had come over the past two months.

“Come on Pearce,” Jordi groaned, his arms moving up to wrap around Aiden’s torso and hold him close. “Come for me. Come on.”

The other man’s arms pulled him down, forcing him to meet each of Jordi’s thrusts. Jordi’s face buried in Aiden’s shoulder, mouthing and nipping gently at the skin there.

“Let me feel you come Aiden,” Jordi practically begged.

Jordi wanted him to come first. It was the only reason Aiden tried to fight it; tried to hold on as long as he could before he lost himself, but it was impossible when he was already so far gone, and Jordi’s arms were wrapped around him and forcing him to take as much of Jordi’s cock as he possible could and it all felt so amazing. His own cock was rubbing against Jordi’s stomach every time they moved, the harsh, constant pressure enough to drive him insane.

God, it felt so good. So fucking good. He couldn’t let Jordi win, but it just felt so damn good.

There was one more thrust, and then another, and Jordi was losing rhythm and he had to be so close behind Aiden and that thought; that he would surely be taking Jordi over the edge with him was enough for Aiden to finally lose.

He came, his mouth opening in what he had thought was going to be a scream, but no noise came out except for a strange strangled gasp. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think, at least not about anything that wasn’t pleasure and the feeling of Jordi’s arms holding him down, and then, as the pleasure subsided a little, the beautiful sound of Jordi cursing and sighing Aiden’s name as he too came, only a few quick thrusts behind Aiden.

Aiden groaned as he felt Jordi finish inside him. He waited until they had both well and truly ridden out the aftershocks, and then rolled off Jordi to lay on the bed beside him, Jordi letting him go with only a small groan of protest.

Aiden lay there, eyes closed and hand clenched in the nearest pillow as he tried to breathe normally once more.

 _In through the nose, out through the mouth_ , he told himself. _Nice and slow and steady_. It was harder than it should have been.

He opened his eyes to find Jordi’s face just inches from his own, the other man staring straight at Aiden, his dark eyes meeting Aiden’s own, and his features, for once, mostly relaxed and not distorted in a frown or that god-awful grin that Aiden knew so well.

Neither of them spoke. Of course not. Speaking would mean the death of something that, up until that moment, had been strangely and undeniably beautiful. They were good together while fucking; their two bodies joining together in a beautiful synchronicity that they could never hope to replicate outside of the bedroom; but any sort of conversation that the two of them attempted to have now would inevitably devolve into a verbal sparring match full of sarcasm and insults, just like all conversations between the two of them seemed to.

Instead Aiden just lay there, staring into Jordi’s eyes until the eye contact became too much for him to stand. He looked down instead, where he could see their limbs still tangled together, and his semen splattered all over both of their stomachs. For that matter he could feel something quite warm and sticky trickling over his thighs and rear as well.

He cast his eyes around the room for something that he might use to clean himself up.

“Here,” Jordi muttered, passing him a tissue without Aiden even having to ask.

Aiden glanced at the tissue for a moment in suspicion.

“They were on a table on this side of the bed,” Jordi explained without Aiden needing to ask.

“Thanks,” Aiden mumbled.

In response to that Jordi just leaned forward and kissed him on the lips.

* * *

Aiden wasn’t sure he had ever felt so safe and comfortable upon waking before. His whole body was being cradled by something warm and strong and safe and perfect. Whatever he was sleeping on top of was far softer and more comfortable than he was used to as well, although that wasn’t saying much considering some of the shitholes he had stayed in over the past few months.

There was a warm arm thrown over his torso as well, and as Aiden reached out just a little with his fingers he found them meeting the warm, firm chest of another man. It had been so very long since he had woken up like this; years since he had trusted anyone enough to allow this sort of intimacy.

He felt someone caressing his cheek gently, just with the tips of their fingers, as though they were unable to resist touching Aiden but didn’t want to wake him up. Aiden wondered if it was this touch which had roused him from the depths of sleep, and supposed he didn’t mind being woken up if it was to bliss like this.

It had been so very long since he had felt this happy and relaxed. How the hell had he ended up here again?

It was then that the events of the previous evening came rushing back to him.

Aiden’s eyes flew wide open to find Jordi Chin staring at him and smiling. It wasn’t the other man’s usual shit-eating grin, but something a lot softer. He almost looked fond of Aiden, which was ridiculous.

Then again, if, beforehand, someone had regaled Aiden with the full details of what he and Jordi had done the previous evening then he would have said that was ridiculous as well.

The sex of course had been expected, or at least the first round had. The rest of them not so much. The second round had been pretty much a direct continuation of the first. Aiden had barely finished cleaning them both up before Jordi’s hands were on his cock, stroking him back to hardness.

After the second round the two of them had realised that it was growing dark outside. Between the job and the two rounds of sex they had both worked up quite an appetite and had ordered pizza, which, thanks to Aiden’s hacking skills, neither of them actually paid for despite the fact that they both had plenty of money to spare.

They ate pizza on the apartment’s balcony, Aiden wearing nothing but his boxers and a loose shirt that had belonged to the apartment’s now deceased owner and Jordi wearing nothing at all. Somewhere along the line their bare legs had touched, and that was all that it had taken to prompt round three.

In a matter of minutes Jordi had been on top of Aiden again, licking grease and pizza sauce off the hacker’s fingers and chest. The leftover pizza got in the way far more than either of them could have predicted, and by the time they were done there were streaks of pizza sauce all over both of their chests and limbs, and in other places that pizza sauce was never intended to go.

They retreated to the apartment’s shower, which proved easily large enough to accommodate both of them. Just as Aiden was finally feeling like he was completely clean again Jordi had leaned in from where he had been standing just behind Aiden and had pressed something that was more bite than kiss onto Aiden’s shoulder. Aiden had groaned and pressed back against the other man.

A very brief discussion and the hastiest drying session in the history of showers ensured that they only just made it back to the bed for round four. Their hair and skin had still been damp enough to leave cold, wet patches all over the bed, but neither of them had really cared.

That final session had been the one to break Aiden. The other three had all been amazing, but they had been frantic and desperate, the two of them acting like little more than animals as they clawed and rutted against one another. That fourth and final time they had both been sated and over-sensitive, but still hungry for more. Their movements were slow, their touches gentle and almost reverential, and Aiden had come with his hands clutching the pillows beneath him and tears streaming down the sides of his face.

It had been too much, and he had passed into a strange, half-conscious state. He had been aware of Jordi’s arms moving to wrap around him, of warm, soft blankets and then of sleep dragging him down into its welcoming clutches.

It had all made so much sense at the time. Now, in the harsh light of morning Aiden was faced with the realisation that he and Jordi had actually, legitimately fucked four times the previous night. He wasn’t sure that he had gone four rounds in one day with anyone before.

He almost wished that Jordi would mock him or say something ridiculous. Hell, even his smug grin would have been welcoming in that moment, but instead Jordi reached over and gently caressed Aiden’s arm. Aiden froze, like an animal pinned by a predator’s gaze. He could have dealt with mockery or smugness. Tenderness, especially from Jordi Chin, was unexpected and unpredictable. It felt dangerous; wrong somehow.

“Morning sunshine,” Jordi said.

And then the other man smiled, and Aiden immediately relaxed. It was still the same annoying, shit-eating grin that he had learned to hate so much. The world was back to normal.

Aiden flicked off the other man’s hand, kicked off the covers and rolled out of bed. His body protested in at least three places as he did. As delightful as the previous night had been he wasn’t as young as he had once been, and his body was paying the price.

Jordi yawned loudly and stretched as Aiden hunted around for their clothing. When he next turned his attention back to Jordi he found the fixer staring rather blatantly at Aiden’s still exposed ass.

“Nice view,” Jordi joked as soon as he realised that Aiden had caught him staring.

Aiden threw the other man’s jacket right at his smug face and then continued to storm around the rest of the apartment.

He found his underwear on the balcony, and, like most of the balcony, it was covered in pizza stains. As Aiden walked out he scared off a couple of pigeons that had been hard at work pecking at what remained of the pizza.

Aiden lifted up the stained underwear in two fingers, grimaced at it and realised that it would be a complete write-off.

By the time he had gathered together most of his clothing and put his jeans and another one of the owner’s shirts on, Jordi was already fully dressed and had even managed to take the time to make sure that all signs of bed-hair had been banished. Aiden hated him in that moment. How the hell could the other man make himself look so suave and perfect with so little time and effort?

“So, that was fun,” Jordi said as he clipped his watch back into place on his wrist. “We’re going to do it again soon, right Pearce?”

Aiden shrugged.

“Right Pearce?” Jordi said, fixing Aiden with a glare that had a lot more venom in it than Aiden had been expecting.

“You can fucking say no you asshole,” Jordi said, shaking his head. “But if last night taught me anything at all then it’s that you are seriously fucking into me, but for some reason you seem determined to deny yourself.”

Aiden tried to protest, but he couldn’t find the words. He knew that Jordi was right. He had made a fucking mess of the whole thing, hadn’t he?

“So next time you want the two of us to meet up and fuck again, you’re going to use your words,” Jordi said, his patronising tone not only insulting but completely obnoxious as well. “Like an actual adult, capable of human interaction, right Aiden?”

The fact that Jordi had addressed Aiden using his first name and not his usual ‘Pearce’ did not escape the attention of the hacker. He couldn’t tell whether it was the change in their relationship that prompted such a change, or whether Jordi was doing it, as Aiden suspected he did half of everything he did, just to see whether or not it would piss off Aiden.

Either way he figured Jordi had earned a solid glare. It wasn’t as though he particularly minded people addressing him by his first name, but somehow Jordi could make nearly anything irritating to Aiden if he tried hard enough.

“So fucking help me Pearce,” Jordi said. “How am I the fucking fully functional adult in this relationship? If you want to fuck then just ring me up and let me know, all right?”

Aiden felt himself deflating as the anger swiftly left his body to be replaced with a much more uncomfortable sense of guilt. Jordi did have a point. He wasn’t being rational about this.

“All right,” Aiden conceded.

“My god, was that actual progress?” Jordi asked, and the fact that he smiled so widely and deviously at Aiden immediately had the hacker wondering if he should be worried. “I think it was! Congratulations Aiden. Now, if you don’t mind, I have a client to report to.”

He nodded in farewell, and Aiden was expecting him to leave without saying or doing anything else. He was therefore surprised when Jordi quickly closed the gap between them and pressed his lips rather forcefully against Aiden’s own. The kiss only lasted for a second or two, but it was unexpected enough and passionate enough that it left Aiden completely speechless afterwards.

He stood there and stared dumbfounded as Jordi quickly dipped his head again and then headed for the elevator. It arrived, Jordi left, and Aiden was still standing there staring at where the other man had been a moment earlier.

When he could finally think straight again he found himself cursing Jordi again, at least in the privacy of his own mind. What the fuck sort of parting had that been?

That kiss had been so fucking domestic, like one half of a married couple saying goodbye to the other half before heading off to work. It was everything their relationship couldn’t and shouldn’t be, and Aiden had been thinking fondly about it and about Jordi as though there was anything at all about this that wasn’t completely fucked up.

He was already in too deep. He should get out as soon as possible, leave whatever this was that was building up between them in the trash where it belonged, but as one of Aiden’s hands moved up to press against his own lips, chasing the ghost of the kiss that Jordi had planted there, he realised that it was already too late.

He was fucked. All he could do now was try to get out of this with as much of his dignity left intact as possible.


	2. Mint Condition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baseball cards, peppermint lube, a sunrise and only a couple of dead bodies.

CHAPTER TWO – Mint Condition

Aiden had made an excellent bargain with himself. He knew that he was going to give in and call Jordi again, and soon, but the last thing that he wanted was to look overly desperate or needy. So, when he found his thumb hovering over the ‘call’ button beneath Jordi’s name on his phone, he turned the phone off and put it back in his pocket.

Two days was too soon. His arse hadn’t even fully recovered from the last time, and when he had last seen his neck and shoulders in the mirror in one of his safe-houses there had still been far too many red markings there for his liking.

He decided then that he would wait for one whole week before calling Jordi and arranging another hook-up. Seven days should be easy enough to endure, while still being long enough between encounters for Aiden to be able to maintain some semblance of dignity.

For the remainder of the second day and the third he was pleased enough with his own plan that the desire to be with Jordi again didn’t bother him too much. By the fourth day he was beginning to wonder if perhaps four days was long enough after all.

The fifth was pure torture. Aiden didn’t know what exactly had caused him to be in such a lust-addled mood that day, but it seemed as though all he could think about was the other man. Before The Jordi Incident Aiden hadn’t had sex with anyone for two years. It was almost as though actual sex with another actual person was enough to awaken some long-forgotten, annoyingly horny part of Aiden, and now that it had been awoken it was impossible to put it to rest once more.

It occurred to him on the evening of that fifth frightful day that it might be the fact that it was Jordi he was having sex with that had caused such a drastic change in his priorities. That thought however was horrifying, and so Aiden immediately banished it from his mind.

Instead he tried to occupy himself with his investigation into the human trafficking ring Lucky Quinn had been tied to. It had been a long, drawn-out affair, and took up enough of his attention that Aiden was mostly able to distract himself. Mostly.

The sixth day was nearly as bad as the fifth. Just one more day, Aiden told himself. You can call Jordi up tomorrow night and see if he wants to fuck again. The possibility that Jordi might not be interested, or might be too busy to see Aiden was not one that Aiden wanted to consider.

Aiden had almost made it to the seventh day. The final night would be easy. He had, despite the odds, managed to retain at least some of his dignity.

And so of course it was during that sixth evening, when Aiden had already been feeling pretty proud of himself, that Jordi rang him.

Aiden cursed as soon as he saw Jordi’s name appear on his phone.

“Jordi,” he practically snapped as he answered.

“Hey Pearce,” Jordi said, his voice dripping with honey. “You free?”

“Why?” Aiden asked. “What’s the job?”

“No job,” Jordi said, following up the revelation with one of his familiar chuckles. “At least, not for you. I just wanted to know if you were interested in well… spending a little quality time together.”

Aiden felt his throat go dry and his cock stirring to life inside his jeans.

“Maybe,” Aiden replied. There was no work that urgently needed his attention. He could spend a few hours, or even a whole night with Jordi if Jordi wanted to.

“Maybe…” Jordi said, drawing out the word as though tasting it. “Is that Aiden Pearce speak for ‘no’, ‘let me check my fucking desk calendar to see if I have any free time’ or ‘take me right now Jordi Chin, you undeniable sex god.’”

It if was any then it was the third, but Aiden wasn’t about to admit that. For a moment he considered hanging up on Jordi, but considering how annoyed Jordi had been the last time, Aiden wasn’t all that sure that Jordi would call him back, or even pick up the phone if Aiden called him again.

“It means maybe,” Aiden snapped. “Maybe a yes. I don’t know. Convince me.”

“Convince you?” Jordi said, the pleased tone in his voice making it sound as though he relished the potential challenge. “All right. Well, how’s this for convincing. If everything goes according to plan then you’ll get to spend a significant portion of the evening with my dick up your ass.”

Aiden hung up.

* * *

“Oh come on,” Jordi complained. “You really need to learn to relax a little more and take a fucking joke Pearce. Unless of course that last comment got you a little too hot and bothered and you had to take care of business immediately? Can’t blame you there. I have that effect on a lot of people.”

Aiden rolled his eyes.

“You could try being less of an ass,” he suggested.

Jordi just continued on as though he had paid no attention at all to what Aiden had said.

“So, as I was saying. Nothing about dicks in asses this time. I happen to know a place where we could… hmm… You know, I don’t think I want to spoil the surprise, but, all messing around aside, this is totally just an elaborate booty call. I have located a particularly interesting venue in which the two of us could fuck. That’s pretty much it. You up for it?”

Aiden considered it for a moment. Despite the other man’s complete lack of anything approaching tact or subtlety, there was no way he wasn’t going to agree to sleep with Jordi again.

“I reserve the right to suggest we move the er… fucking, to a different location if I don’t like the place you’ve picked,” he told Jordi.

After all, there was absolutely no guarantee that Jordi’s idea of an interesting place to fuck wouldn’t be in a slaughterhouse.

“Deal,” Jordi agreed.

* * *

The location Jordi had mentioned ended up being someone’s private vault.

“What the fuck?” Aiden just muttered when the other man had finished explaining.

“Pretty cool, right?” Jordi said, seemingly ignoring the fact that Aiden’s head was now buried in his hands.

Jordi had been contracted to take out a man by the name of Brian Petersen. Petersen happened to have transformed part of his house into a vault for the storage and display of a particularly large and valuable collection of baseball cards. Jordi had managed to obtain access to the vault in the course of completing the contract, and still happened to have the access card.

“So what I’m thinking,” Jordi had said, “is we go into that vault of his, fuck the place up and then fuck on top of his nearly priceless collection of shitty baseball memorabilia.”

It was reckless and stupid and such a Jordi idea. It was appealing in a strange sort of way though, and not only because, vault or no vault, Jordi’s plan still involved Aiden having sex with Jordi.

“Come on Aiden,” Jordi continued. “What do you say, huh? How often do you get a chance to fuck on top of a near priceless anything?”

Jordi had a point, although Aiden still wasn’t sure if the baseball cards made the idea more appealing or less. He suddenly had a mental image of cards getting stuck in places they definitely shouldn’t go.

“You killed this guy yesterday, right?”

“Right. Early last night.”

“The body will have been found by now. The place will be cordoned off as a crime scene and surrounded by cops.”

After all, Jordi’s typical methods of taking someone out weren’t exactly quite or subtle.

Jordi scoffed at that.

“I garroted the asshole,” he told Aiden. “Suburbia is not exactly an ideal place for a sniper rifle.”

“Yeah,” Aiden replied. “That’s what I was thinking.”

“Every fucking housewife and her yappy Pomeranian within a three block radius would have heard that sucker go off. I’m not fucking stupid Pearce. And yes, before you ask me, the man lived alone. Trust me. No-one knows that guy is dead yet except for you, me and my client.”

Aiden was still far from convinced that the idea was a good one.

“Come on Pearce,” Jordi said, pretty much as close to pleading with Aiden as he ever got. “Live a little.”

And then, when that didn’t work, he just leaned forward on the steering wheel of his car, a shitty family wagon that probably wasn’t worth half as much as the suit that he was wearing, and smiled at Aiden, his eyes twinkling in a way that promised trouble for someone; probably Aiden.

“I’ll suck your cock,” Jordi offered.

* * *

When Jordi had described the house and the vault Aiden had been expecting a rather large and more impressive residence; something perhaps a little closer to a mansion and less like the single-story, relatively normal house that Jordi lead him towards.

The house showed no signs of being any different to any of the others in the street. The gardens were perhaps a little more well-maintained and the car in the driveway was a little more valuable, but other than that it could have belonged to anyone. It was the middle of the night when he and Jordi strode through the front door, and the street was just as quiet and peaceful as any in this perfect little piece of suburbia.

Aiden’s opinion wasn’t really changed when the two of them stepped into the house either, at least until he passed the living room and spotted the corpse lying in the center of the room, sprawled on the carpet, his blank gaze staring over at Jordi and Aiden as they passed.

“What did he do to get a hit called on him?” Aiden asked.

“Don’t know, don’t care,” Jordi quickly replied. “Although secretly I’m kind of hoping that my client was just after his card collection. Picturing him walking into that vault after the mess we make in there…”

“Bullshit,” Aiden interrupted. “I know you better than that Jordi. You always research your targets before accepting a job.”

Jordi sighed loudly in response to that.

“All right,” he said, turning around to face Aiden. “You fucking got me Pearce. Asshole was connected to the local slave trading operation. He’d offer lifts to girls when they were, you know, drunk or doing the walk of shame or whatever; vulnerable, you know? Apparently one of the girls he picked up was my client’s daughter. Let me tell you Pearce; it took a lot of digging to uncover that much.”

Aiden was stunned. He had suspected Jordi was remaining quiet about his client and the job because Aiden wouldn’t approve of something about it. If anything it was the opposite. It seemed more likely that Jordi had stayed quiet because it was an unusually empathetic and just contract for Jordi to take; the sort of thing that Aiden would not only approve of but might be inclined to help with himself.

“How much did you charge for the job?” Aiden asked, wondering if Jordi might be going a little soft.

“The usual,” Jordi immediately said. “Guy’s daughter might be missing, but he’s still filthy fucking rich. Quinn’s idiots probably could have made more money ransoming her.”

“What’s her name?” Aiden asked.

“What the fuck do you care?”

“I’ve been following up on that human trafficking ring over the last few weeks,” Aiden explained. “I might be able to find this woman if I have a name.”

“I don’t fucking know. Raquel? Ramira? Something like that. Began with an R at least. Vasquez.”

“Right,” Aiden said, making a note in his phone.

“You are such a fucking bleeding heart Pearce,” Jordi said, shaking his head. “Now, you want to see this vault or what?”

What would have probably been a couple of secondary bedrooms or storage space in any other suburban house had been renovated and walled off. Behind a wide glass door Aiden could see inside to a large, stark room that flickered into life as soon as Jordi turned on a nearby light-switch. Unlike the rest of the house, which seemed relatively cozy and a little bit cluttered, the vault’s floor and roof were covered in pristine white tiles and the walls were painted with spotless grey paint. Here and there display cases showed off the prized items of the dead man’s collection, while a bookcase holding several dozen folders seemed to house the rest.

Jordi scanned the access card he had stolen and the door opened with a tinny ‘beep’.

The system was old. Aiden probably could have hacked the door open with ease. Jordi’s way was infinitely easier though, and so Aiden instead turned his attention towards the ceiling, where a pair of security cameras slowly rotated backwards and forwards around the room. Aiden shut them off quickly. Even disregarding the illegality of his and Jordi’s presence in the dead man’s house, he really didn’t want anyone watching them while the two of them fucked.

Jordi strode right over to the bookcase in the center of the room, picked up one of the folders seemingly at random and began to flick through it. He then tossed it over his shoulder without looking, the folder flying over Aiden’s shoulder and narrowly missing his head.

It hit the glass behind Aiden, who flinched, half-expecting the glass to shatter.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked Jordi as the fixer picked up another one of the folders.

“Trashing the place,” Jordi replied simply. “Rather than just standing there looking like a fucking goldfish with your mouth hanging open, you might consider joining in.”

“I thought we were going to have sex?” Aiden pressed, watching as Jordi half-heartedly shook out a few dozen cards from one of the folders. He wondered if this was another round of ‘Jordi makes Aiden humiliate himself before any sex actually happens.’ He hoped that it wasn’t.

“Well yeah.” Jordi replied. “Of course, but I told you we were going to fuck this place up first.”

“Why are we doing this?” Aiden asked as he approached the nearest display cabinet.

“Well, we can’t exactly fuck  _on top_  of this guy’s collection if they’re all still in folders and stuff, right?”

“Jesus Christ Jordi…”

“What are you so worried about? The guy was an ass. I thought you’d enjoy messing this place up, so come on, get to messing it up already.”

Aiden rolled his eyes and grabbed the item closest to him; a single signed card that had been placed in an elaborate frame all by itself. He threw it over his shoulder, heard it ‘thunk’ against the tiled wall, and then heard the much more satisfying sound of cracking glass as it fell to the ground.

“There you go,” Jordi practically purred.

He sauntered over to Aiden, holding another one of the folders in his hands as he did.

“Couldn’t help but notice,” Jordi said as he handed the folder to Aiden, “that you’ve got a fair bit of pent up rage in there Pearce. Might as well take it out on the dead asshole’s collection, hmm?”

He grinned at Aiden, and Aiden couldn’t help but wonder whether Jordi had just revealed the true reason why he had chosen this place for their hook-up above all others. It was a surprisingly thoughtful gesture. Aiden wished that it wasn’t.

Aiden sighed and tore one of the plastic sleeves from the folder. It gave way a lot easier than Aiden had anticipated. Jordi stood nearby, watching Aiden closely as he worked, the fixer looking as though he was enjoying watching Aiden ruin the card collection as much as he was going to enjoy the sex that they were eventually going to have.

Aiden tore out another sleeve and shook the cards out onto the floor. There  _was_ something strangely therapeutic about watching the old pieces of card falling onto the floor. Several baseball players, probably all long dead judging by the art style, lay there on the floor, staring up at him accusingly. Aiden stomped his boot down on top of one of them and ground it into the floor.

Jordi let out an appreciative groan as he watched Aiden.

“That’s more like it,” he said, sending a smile in Aiden’s direction.

Aiden didn’t get any further before Jordi was on top of him, pressing Aiden up against the nearest wall and kissing him senseless. Aiden was stunned, at least at first, but then he began to relax, kissing back as Jordi held him pinned in place against the wall.

Aiden reached for Jordi’s belt, giving it a gentle tug, but he wasn’t able to do any more than that before Jordi was pulling back from the kiss. Jordi grinned widely at Aiden, licked his own lips and then leaned in, tongue darting out to lap over Aiden’s for just a second.

Aiden felt himself flush, and continued to pull on Jordi’s belt, preparing himself for the next inevitable kiss, and for the blissful assault of Jordi’s hands on his body, sure that any moment now they would begin to devolve into the same lust-riddled haze that had seemed to grab them both the last time they had been alone together.

Aiden wasn’t afraid of losing himself this time. In fact he was looking forward to it. He was already half-hard and could barely stop himself from pressing up against Jordi and demanding more.

Jordi continued to pull back however, and Aiden reluctantly let his hold on the other man’s belt go. Jordi leaned down to pick up one of the fallen cards, grabbing it between two fingers and then holding it up like a trophy.

“Look at this asshole,” Jordi said. “Who the fuck is he? Why the fuck did Petersen give a shit? The art on these things isn’t even that good.”

Aiden stared at the card Jordi was holding, and realized it was the one that he had stomped on earlier. He shrugged, and privately wished that Jordi would ditch the card and return to Aiden so that they could continue kissing.

“Jordi…” Aiden groaned.

The fixer didn’t seem to get the message however. Jordi strode back over to the rack of cards and continued his systematic destruction of the vault, proving what Aiden had assumed was the beginning of the sex Jordi had promised to actually be no more than a single kiss.

“Jordi!” Aiden tried again.

“What?” Jordi asked, this time at least glancing back over his shoulder while in the middle of sending a torrent of cards falling to the floor.

Aiden strode right over to the other man and pressed his lips against Jordi’s, the kiss even more ferocious and demanding than the one that Jordi had initiated. Aiden grabbed Jordi’s jacket by the lapels and pulled him closer, deepening the kiss.

Jordi let out a pleased-sounding moan and began to kiss back with fervor. His arms wrapped around Aiden’s waist and pulled their lower bodies flush against one another. Aiden could feel the other man’s erection pressing against his own, and ground his hips against it, desperate for friction.

Jordi let out a gasp as he pulled back from the kiss.

“Easy there Pearce,” he whispered through a wide grin. His hands held on to Aiden’s rear tightly, as though he was trying to still Aiden’s thrusting, but all that it took was one particularly low, slow thrust from Aiden, and Aiden taking Jordi’s lower lip between both of his own, and then Jordi was pulling him closer, pressing their still-clothed cocks harder together.

“Fuck…” Aiden muttered as he let his head fall against Jordi’s shoulder.

“Too many clothes?” Jordi suggested.

“Too many,” Aiden agreed, and then their hands were everywhere, pulling at buttons and belts, hands desperately trying to get at the skin beneath.

* * *

They had both lost their jackets, Jordi’s chest was bare and his fly open enough to free his now fully erect cock, and Aiden’s pants and underwear were caught somewhere around his knees, when an alarm on Aiden’s phone went off.

He wanted to ignore it, and judging by the fact that Jordi gently slapped Aiden’s hand away when he went to check the phone, so did the fixer, but Aiden knew that there were only a few different reasons why that particular alarm would sound, and none of them were good.

“This is… fuck, Jordi…” Aiden moaned as Jordi mouthed at Aiden’s collarbone and did his best to distract the hacker. “This is really… important…”

He checked his phone’s screen, and all temptation to ignore the alert and just allow Jordi to continue what he was doing quickly fled his mind.

“Shit…” Aiden cursed as he stared at the information on his phone screen.

“Seriously Pearce, what the fuck is...?”

They both fell immediately silent as the sound of someone knocking loudly on the house’s front door reached their ears.

“Hello, Mister Petersen!” someone called out. “This is Kevin Carlton. I’m with Umeni Security Company. Are you all right in there?”

“Shit, shit, shit…” Aiden cursed.

It was exactly what the alert on his phone had been trying to warn him about. Security professionals were in the area and closing in. Aiden should have known that they would have come to check the place out. After all, Aiden had shut the cameras off, and while that would usually be the smart thing for him to do when infiltrating a place, there was a big difference between shutting off a security camera for a few seconds while he sneaked past and shutting off an entire room for as long as he and Jordi had already spent in the vault.

“Mister Petersen!” the security guard called out again. “Sir, sorry to disturb you at this time of the morning, but you weren’t answering your phone. The security cameras in your vault seem to be down, so I’m here to check them out.”

The guard fell silent for a moment. Jordi reached down into his jacket and pulled out a small but very sharp-looking knife from somewhere inside. Aiden frantically gestured for the other man to put it away.

“Just stay quiet and he’ll leave on his own,” Aiden hissed at Jordi.

Jordi rolled his eyes and kept the knife in his hand.

“Mister Petersen!” the security guard called out again, and this time his voice was accompanied by a rapid thumping on the door. “Sir, I just accessed our records and our systems show that someone accessed your private vault approximately twenty minutes ago and there is no record of anyone leaving. Sir, I apologize for this if you are home and just unable to hear me, but I have reason to believe that something is very suspicious here, so I’m going to break down this door now.”

“I’m fine!” Aiden called out, hoping that the guard had no idea what the owner of the house actually sounded like. “Everything’s fine, but er…”

Jordi frantically gestured at Aiden, and for a moment Aiden thought that Jordi was trying to help him come up with something to say, but when Jordi made a motion that was undoubtedly supposed to resemble slitting someone’s throat open, Aiden realized that he was still trying to convince Aiden that they should just kill the guard and be done with it.

“I’m naked!” Aiden called out. “Please er… give me a moment to get dressed.”

“Yeah sure,” Jordi whispered. “Maybe Petersen just needed a little bit of alone time with his cards. You think he _did_ ever jack off in here? He had to, right?”

“Jordi!” Aiden hissed.

Aiden had assumed that the guard would need to break down the front door to get to them, and that they would at least have a few seconds to straighten themselves out and hide, but fortune was not so kind. Aiden cursed beneath his breath as he heard the sound of a key turning in the lock of the front door.

“The dead body,” Aiden whispered frantically to Jordi. “If he sees that he’ll radio for help.”

“All right sir,” the guard called out from near the front door. “I’m just going to wait here while you er… you know, while you get cleaned up and stuff, but I really am going to need to have a look at those cameras. Shouldn’t… be… too…”

Aiden and Jordi had only just pulled apart and Aiden hadn’t even had time to pull his pants back up when the guard found the body.

“Shit!” Aiden cursed, fumbling with his phone and just managing to overload the security guard’s radio and phone in time to stop him from calling for help.

“What the hell!” the guard cried out.

After only a second more the security guard had turned the corner. There wasn’t really anywhere to hide in the vault. Jordi’s preference for light coloured clothing and his current lack of a shirt meant that he was able to duck behind one of the shelves and fade into the background with relative ease, but Aiden had been left standing there, right in the middle of the vault with his dick hanging out.

The only thing that stood between him and the security guard was the vault’s glass door and wall. They were probably bulletproof considering how much Petersen had seemed to value the contents inside, but that did not stop the security guard from pulling his gun on Aiden, and ‘probably bulletproof’ was not enough of a reassurance to stop Aiden from immediately lifting his hands over his head in response.

“Don’t… oh god…” the security guard cursed, Aiden’s rather obvious erection meaning that the guard was apparently having a hard time looking straight at him while he talked. “Don’t move, you… what the fuck…”

The security guard reached out and tapped some sort of dongle against the vault’s card reader, which beeped in reply and immediately opened the door for him. He made his way into the vault, his gun still pointed straight at Aiden.

Aiden stayed perfectly still, and no matter how much he might have been tempted to check on Jordi, he made sure that he did not glance at the other man and give away his hiding place. He would just have to trust that the fixer would get him out of this one. It wasn’t as though this was the first time they had been in a situation like this, although it was certainly the first time that Aiden’s dick had been hanging out during it.

“Don’t move,” the security guard repeated, his eyes darting around nervously, as though he was sure that Aiden was going to attack him at any second.

“I’m not moving,” Aiden assured him, the sound of his voice alone enough to make the security guard jump. “Listen, I’m Petersen, right? I told you I was… occupied.”

The security guard glanced down at Aiden’s cock, which was still half-hard and then glanced away just as quickly, grimacing as he did.

“I don’t care what the fuck this is, or what you were doing in here,” the guard said, pointedly looking Aiden right in the eye and not any lower, “but there is a dead man back in that living room, so you have a _lot_ of explaining to do, and you need to do it right now.”

While the security guard’s attention was locked firmly on Aiden, Jordi snuck out from his hiding place, approached the guard from behind and slit the other man’s neck in a move so quick and clean that the security guard didn’t even have time to cry out.

Blood sprayed everywhere. Aiden took a step back, but wasn’t quick enough to avoid the small amount of splatter that fell on the white sleeve of his shirt.

The security guard fell to the ground, gasping and choking, the gun in his hand falling to the floor as he scrabbled frantically at the freshly opened gash in his neck.

He thrashed around for a second or so and then immediately fell silent and still. There was blood all over the place now, drenching some of the cards that had been knocked to the ground and staining the shards of glass that lay alongside them.

“Now where were we?” Jordi asked, right before his arms wrapped around Aiden’s waist and pulled him close. The other man attached his mouth to Aiden’s neck and began to suck and lick and one of his hands snuck inside Aiden’s half-unbuttoned shirt to run over the skin beneath.

Aiden screwed his nose up in distaste.

“There’s a dead body in here,” he said, staring pointedly at the remains of the guard. His blood had splattered all over the floor and wall, the red a stark contrast on the spotless grey walls. It reminded him a little of Jordi himself actually; of the red shirt and pale grey suit that he was partially wearing right at that moment. Red blood on pale grey; this room matched Jordi’s aesthetic perfectly now.

“What?” Jordi said, gesturing and smiling at Aiden and barely even glancing at the corpse. “It’s not like he’s going to be watching us.”

Aiden rolled his eyes at the other man.

“Fine,” Jordi replied, stepping back and folding his arms in front of his chest. “All right. No fucking right next to other people’s corpses. Got it.”

Jordi’s response was to grab the guard by his arms and begin to drag the other man’s body towards the door.

“Jesus Christ Aiden,” he continued to speak as he worked. “You’re so vanilla.”

Aiden frowned at the fixer. Being caught out like that had been humiliating, and his erection had died completely with the death of the security guard, but he was still a little frustrated. He had come here with Jordi to have sex damn it, and none of this was going as Aiden had anticipated it would.

“I’m not even wearing gloves,” Jordi complained as he continued to work. “My fingerprints are going to be all over this god damned body.”

“We’ve got bigger problems than that,” Aiden commented as he followed Jordi. “Umeni is going to know something isn’t right when that guard doesn’t report back. We probably don’t have much time.”

Jordi had managed to drag the body all the way to the living room now, leaving a long, thick trail of blood throughout the house as he did.

“You suggesting we shouldn’t fuck after all?” he asked Aiden as he dragged the security guard to rest alongside the body of the house’s dead owner.

“No,” Aiden snapped. “I’m suggesting we need to be quick about it.”

“Ohhhh,” Jordi said. “Is someone getting impatient?”

He grinned at Aiden, and the hacker couldn’t help but feel as though Jordi was somehow teasing him. It wasn’t going to work though.

“Yes,” he replied, folding his hands in front of his chest. “I am.”

Jordi stood back up to his full height and grinned at Aiden as he stretched his arms a little.

“Well then,” the fixer practically purred at Aiden. “We should probably get back to that vault.”

“Yes,” Aiden said, turning his back on Jordi and already making his way back to the other room. “We should.”

He didn’t turn around to check, but he could hear Jordi practically running after him. The vault door was still unlocked, and if it wasn’t for the fact that he and Jordi now had a limited amount of time in which to enjoy themselves, Aiden might have been tempted to lock it behind him and see how Jordi composed himself when Aiden messed with him rather than the other way around.

Aiden knew that he wouldn’t have been able to hold out for long though. Despite the blood and glass on the floor, both of which Aiden sidestepped in order to get to a relatively safe and clear part of the room, he found himself growing hard again just from the anticipation.

Jordi entered the room right behind Aiden, and, while Aiden still had his back turned to the other man, wrapped his arms around Aiden’s waist and pulled him close. Jordi’s lips descended on Aiden’s shoulder once more, the other man mouthing and biting at the skin there and making pleased little noises in the back of his throat as he did. When Jordi pulled Aiden closer he could tell that the fixer’s erection hadn’t really flagged at all.

In all the chaos of the security guard’s interruption Aiden had not managed much more than to pull up his pants. With a single tug from Jordi they were back down, leaving Aiden’s rear exposed and letting him feel Jordi’s hard and still-clothed cock sliding over his crack as the fixer began to slowly rut against him.

Aiden groaned and whimpered, and despite how quickly Jordi’s actions were turning him on, he managed to retain enough self-control to pull away from Jordi’s arms, at least enough that he could turn around and face the fixer.

“If I remember things correctly,” he gasped, looking Jordi right in the eyes and refusing to look away, “you promised me something.”

Jordi looked confused for a moment and then he laughed, showing two almost perfect rows of sharp white teeth as he did.

“Of course,” he then purred, leaning in to playfully nip at Aiden’s earlobe before pulling back again and grinning widely at him. “I did, didn’t I?”

His hands immediately dropped down. Another quick tug at Aiden’s pants had them falling all the way down to pool around Aiden’s ankles. Jordi’s hands then both wrapped around Aiden’s cock, a few quick tugs and caresses soon making Aiden rock hard. Jordi’s hands tugged at Aiden’s length, caressed his tip, and moved down to fondle Aiden’s balls. At the same time Jordi leaned forward, his lips attaching to Aiden’s shoulder once more.

After only a moment Jordi’s mouth began to travel downwards, his lips tracing a trail over Aiden’s shoulder and chest, where he paused to press a kiss to each of Aiden’s nipples, giving a playful nip to the one on the left before moving on. His kisses continued to move down, over Aiden’s stomach and belly button, and then travelling slower, each kiss lingering on the skin for a fraction longer than the last, until at last Jordi pulled back.

Aiden stared at the other man, feeling his knees grow weak just at the sight of Jordi kneeling before him. Jordi looked up at Aiden and as their eyes met he licked his lips. Aiden grabbed the display counter behind him, in an attempt to stabilize himself and stop his legs from giving out.

His breath hitched as Jordi planted a kiss to the side of Aiden’s erection. The other man’s lips lingered, sucking on a seemingly random patch of Aiden’s cock as though he found it delicious. After a moment he pulled back again, licked his lips and then licked the entire length of Aiden’s cock from base to tip in one long, fluid motion that pulled a moan from Aiden’s throat.

His hips bucked a couple of times, the small, shallow thrusts earning him nothing but another pleased grin from Jordi.

“Whoa, ease up there Pearce,” Jordi said as, still smiling, he grabbed Aiden’s hips and held him in place, pinned against the display cabinet. “The show’s just getting started.”

Aiden whimpered. God, he was already so hard, and so desperate for Jordi’s mouth on him. When had he turned into this mess? He wasn’t sure that he had ever felt like this before with any of his other partners. He certainly hadn’t with Damien. There was something about Jordi that meant he couldn’t help but turn into a weak-willed, lust-crazed idiot whenever the two of them were together like this.

All complaints swiftly fled Aiden’s mind as Jordi’s lips wrapped around the end of Aiden’s cock. Aiden screamed, his hands scrabbling for better hold on the cabinet as his legs threatened to give out underneath him.

Jordi was wasting no time, taking Aiden’s entire length in his mouth and deep-throating him right from the word go. Aiden whimpered and wriggled, trying to thrust into Jordi’s mouth despite the hands that kept him in place.

“Jordi,” he found himself pleading. “Jordi… fuck… please… Jordi…”

Jordi bobbed his head, Aiden’s cock sliding effortlessly in and out of his throat, the pleasure so sudden and so perfect that Aiden knew he wouldn’t even last two minutes if the other man kept it up.

Jordi only lasted a few more seconds before he was pulling off Aiden’s cock completely, gasping and then grinning up at Aiden as though he knew exactly what he was doing to Aiden and was incredibly proud of it.

Aiden whimpered again and then, embarrassed at the noises he didn’t seem to be able to stop making, he bit down on his bottom lip. Jordi’s lips came to wrap around the head of Aiden’s cock again and he began sucking with all his might. Only the pressure and slight pain of Aiden’s teeth digging into his lower lip stopped him from letting out another embarrassingly loud cry.

Jordi sucked for another couple of seconds before pulling off Aiden’s cock.

“Come on Pearce,” Jordi said, nuzzling against Aiden’s cock. He then paused for just a moment to plant a kiss to the side of the erection. “Let go. You know I want to hear you scream.”

Aiden tried to suppress the whimper that emerged from him then. He failed, and the end result sounded more like a sob than anything else.

Jordi smiled up at him again and then went back to sucking on the tip of Aiden’s cock. Aiden stopped biting his lip, and was therefore unable to stop the whimpers and moans that immediately began to emerge from his throat.

Aiden’s sounds prompted a pleased moan from Jordi in response, the vibrations from it travelling all the way up Aiden’s cock.

“Oh god,” Aiden gasped. “God, Jordi… I can’t…”

He chanced letting go of the display cabinet with one hand and reached out to thread it through Jordi’s hair. Part of him longed to hold Jordi in place, to fuck the other man’s throat until he was spent, but he was able to keep that instinct back far more successfully than he could his moans. Instead his hand tangled in the other man’s long, soft hair, gently trying to urge Jordi to take more of him into his mouth.

He was getting close again, but he knew that it wasn’t enough.

And then Jordi took all of Aiden into his mouth again, swallowing him deeply in one smooth move that turned Aiden’s gentle whimpers and pleads into a scream.

Jordi bobbed his head again, deep-throating Aiden once more. It was so good that Aiden thought he might go insane from the pleasure. A few more bobs of Jordi’s head and Aiden was coming with a scream and Jordi was swallowing it… oh god he was taking it all straight down his throat, and Aiden did almost collapse back against the display cabinet but Jordi’s hands on his hips kept him in place.

Aiden found himself staring at Jordi as he tried to recover from his orgasm. The other man kept Aiden in his mouth and throat until he was absolutely sure Aiden had finished, and then pulled off with a gasp and a shudder.

Jordi smiled up at Aiden and then got to his feet. The sudden lack of Jordi’s hands on his hips left Aiden feeling unsure and unstable, and he stumbled a little before he was able to regain his balance.

“Just a moment,” Jordi said, his voice sounding a little broken, undoubtedly because of what he had just subjected his throat to. “I’ll be back. Gotta… gotta get some water.”

Aiden was surprised that was all the other man thought he needed. He had fully expected Jordi to spit Aiden out afterwards. Frankly he would have been happy with a mediocre blow job, but instead he had just received the best head of his life. How the hell was Jordi so damn good at it? How much practice had he had?

Aiden just stood there, leaning against the display cabinet and thinking until Jordi returned. Aiden found himself staring at the other man, fascinated by every inch of him. Jordi was still smiling like a triumphant conqueror, and when Aiden’s eyes drifted to the other man’s crotch he couldn’t help but notice the erection that was still quite obviously tenting Jordi’s pants.

“Hey Pearce,” Jordi grinned. “You going to turn around for me babe?”

Aiden kicked off his pants and underwear, which were still pooling around his feet, and had barely started to turn around when suddenly Jordi was all over him, his hands grabbing Aiden’s hips again and pressing him against the display cabinet. Aiden’s arms and bare chest came in contact with far too much of the glass, the cold of it almost too much against his flushed and overly-sensitive skin. He could feel the other man’s still clothed erection pressing against his rear, and shuddered at the conflicting sensations.

Jordi leaned down to press kiss after kiss to Aiden’s shoulders and back. Aiden’s hands reached up to grab the edge of the display cabinet, and after a couple of seconds he heard the clinking of Jordi’s belt buckle as the fixer started to remove his own pants.

Jordi’s mouth stopped planting kisses on Aiden’s back for just a moment as he pulled back to remove his own trousers. When he returned to Aiden it was Jordi’s fully erect and now bare cock that pressed against the cleft of Aiden’s rear. He thrust between Aiden’s cheeks a few times and Aiden pressed back against him, trying to prompt Jordi into fucking him properly.

Jordi paused for a moment, Aiden whined, annoyed that Jordi had to stop for anything, and then a sweet, minty smell suddenly filled the vault.

Suddenly Aiden felt something cold and wet land on his hole and over his rear.

“Where the hell did you get that?” Aiden asked, for a moment afraid of whatever it was that Jordi might be using in place of lube. The smell of peppermint was not promising.

“Had it in my pocket this whole time,” Jordi revealed. “I did come here with every intention of fucking you, remember?”

He rubbed the oil over Aiden’s hole with two fingers before pressing them inside him. Aiden’s skin and insides tingled where the oil made contact. It made every single brush of Jordi’s fingers feel twice as intense as it would normally be, and had him writhing in no time at all.

“Holy shit,” he gasped as Jordi started to stretch him. “What… what is that?”

“It’s nice, right?” Jordi muttered as he removed his fingers and leaned over Aiden. He ran one of his fingers over Aiden’s back, leaving a slick trail of slightly warmed lube behind him.

He then ducked down, pressing his lips to Aiden’s back and kissing it where he had left the lube.

“Tastes nice too,” he muttered, before pressing kiss after kiss all over Aiden’s back, only some of the kisses landing where the peppermint lube had been.

Aiden couldn’t help but realize that this time Jordi was completely naked. Somewhere in all the stretching and tingling Jordi had managed to remove all of his clothing. Aiden felt something warm and slick pressing against his entrance; something that was too thick to just be Jordi’s fingers. He pressed back against the head of Jordi’s cock, trying to get the other man to enter him already, his fingers gripping the edge of the glass cabinet tightly.

“You want me inside of you that badly Pearce?” Jordi asked.

“For god’s sake,” Aiden groaned, turning around just far enough for him to be able to glare at Jordi. “You already know that I do you asshole. Hurry up and fuck me already.”

Jordi shook his head as he guided his cock inside Aiden.

“We really do need to work on your patience.”

Aiden groaned and rolled his eyes and then groaned a lot louder and for a completely different, much more welcome reason as Jordi thrust inside Aiden’s hole in one smooth, fast motion. Between the lube and the rather thorough stretching his fingers had given Aiden’s hole, it was a rather easy, painless entrance. The lube was still warming Aiden’s insides. Between that and the feeling of Jordi’s cock stretching him he was soon completely hard once more.

Jordi pulled half of the way out of Aiden and then pushed back in slowly. It was glorious, everything that Aiden had been craving, and he found himself groaning as Jordi began another slow thrust.

Jordi’s arms wrapped around Aiden’s lower torso and pulled him close on the next thrust. The warmth of the other man’s skin and the feeling of his weight pressing Aiden down against the glass was doing almost as much for Aiden as the feeling of Jordi’s cock in his ass.

Jordi started to grow faster, fucking Aiden into the display case, and slowly but surely pulling him back, so that Aiden was forced to take more of Jordi’s cock inside with every thrust. Jordi had already learned Aiden’s body well enough that he knew exactly how to angle each thrust, and sure enough Aiden continued to groan in pleasure with each movement.

Eventually Aiden gave up his hold on the corner of the glass cabinet, and gave up all attempts he had previously been making to keep himself pushed up in place. He let himself collapse against the glass cabinet, the sudden coldness of the glass against his face and bare chest even more of a shock than it had been against his bare chest.

“Pearce?” Jordi muttered, slowly down his thrusts but not stopping them entirely. “You good?”

Aiden didn’t know whether he wanted to say that yes, he was fine, or whether he wanted Jordi to stop for a moment so that Aiden could get more comfortable. One of Jordi’s now slower and deeper thrusts hit right where Aiden would feel it the most while the hacker was still trying to make up his mind however, and so all that emerged from Aiden’s throat was a long, pleasure-filled groan.

Jordi moved his arms a little, taking some of Aiden’s weight; enough of his hips and torso at least that Jordi could continue thrusting in and out of Aiden, and enough to ensure that his own arms would not be pinned between Aiden’s torso and the cabinet.

Aiden tucked his arms beneath his face and forced himself back up, just enough that his face wasn’t rubbing against the glass with each thrust.

It occurred to him that Jordi was being unusually quiet. The only sounds that emerged from the fixer’s throat were pleased sighs and small groans. Aiden supposed that they were nice sounds; certainly enough to help things along, but it was weird not hearing Jordi’s usual taunts or demands. Aiden thought that he might even miss them.

He found himself staring down at the contents of the cabinet as Jordi continued to fuck him near senseless. There were only three cards inside, each of them placed on a raised, silk-cushioned dais, displayed almost as though they were beautiful pieces of jewelry, and not old, fading photographs or drawings of retired or dead baseball players.

Aiden found his eyes locking with those of the player on the central card. The style of art that had been used to immortalize this particular player was horribly outdated. Aiden supposed there was some talent behind the drawing, but that didn’t stop him from hating it. Nor could any amount of talent possibly justify the ridiculous price that Brian Petersen had undoubtedly paid for what amounted to no more than a piece of old, slowly-fading card.

Jordi changed pace, his short, sharp thrusts stretching out into longer, deeper ones that had Aiden seeing stars and feeling every single inch of Jordi’s length.

The picture on the card right beneath Aiden continued to stare up at him, almost accusingly. Aiden stared back at it, hating the card and the player it depicted with a passion.

Yes, he was letting Jordi Chin of all people fuck him against a glass cabinet in a dead stranger’s house. Yes, that probably meant his sanity was questionable. That did not however mean that some long dead baseball player got to stare at him like that. Aiden knew that the card couldn’t actually see shit, but it still felt like he was being watched; like the player with his stupid white and red uniform could see Aiden scrabbling for purchase on the cold, hard glass, could hear Aiden groaning in pleasure nearly every time Jordi touched him, and would no doubt be watching when Jordi made Aiden come for the second time that night.

The pleasure was building up slowly inside of him, and Aiden knew that it would only be a matter of time until he couldn’t hold it back. Every single one of Jordi’s thrusts had been bringing him closer to the edge. Now that the other man had changed angles the pleasure had only increased.

“Pearce,” Jordi muttered, mostly against the skin on Aiden’s back. “Oh fuck… Pearce.”

It wasn’t the taunting or demanding that Aiden had realized he had been craving earlier, but it was something. Jordi’s voice alone was enough to heighten Aiden’s pleasure. Aiden wasn’t sure what that meant, but it couldn’t possibly be anything good.

“Oh god Pearce,” Jordi continued to moan and whisper. “Fuck… I’m so close.”

And Aiden was getting closer.

“You’re so… fucking… ah…”

Aiden wondered what Jordi had been about to say, but only for a moment, because Jordi moved one of his hands then, wrapping it around Aiden’s erection and giving it a few haphazard tugs.

It was all that Aiden needed. After only a few strokes Aiden was losing it, tumbling over the edge with a scream. Behind him Jordi’s thrusts grew erratic. They came barely seconds apart, Aiden’s come splattering all over the glass cabinet and Jordi coming deep inside of Aiden.

“Oh fuck…” Jordi muttered as he lay mostly on top of Aiden. “Oh fuuuuckkk…”

Aiden lay there, slightly annoyed. The sex had been good, but he had not cum nearly as hard as he would have liked, or as hard as he was used to coming when with Jordi. It just hadn’t been enough. He stared down at the baseball cards, knowing that it was completely their fault.

“Aiden,” Jordi muttered, before pressing a long but simple kiss to the bare skin of Aiden’s shoulder.

As soon as the other man was done Aiden pushed himself up off the glass cabinet. Jordi moved back, although he seemed rather reluctant to do so, his fingertips lingering on the skin of Aiden’s back for a few seconds after the rest of him had left. Aiden pulled up his pants, and did up the zip of his fly if not the button on top of it, and then turned his attention back to three cards resting nearby him.

Aiden stared down at the glass cabinet, which was now splattered with his own cum, and sneered. Something about the whole situation; the fact that the cards behind that glass had deprived him of some of the most pleasurable sex he had ever enjoyed (or at least lessened said pleasure), the knowledge of exactly how high a price had needed to be paid for Petersen to get his greedy little mitts on some of these cards, hell, even the sight of his own seed streaked across the glass; it all served to piss him off far more than it should have.

He grabbed his stun baton from where it lay on the floor nearby, along with half of his clothing, picked it up and immediately brought it down on top of the glass cabinet. The glass shattered into a thousand pieces that flew all around the room and rained down on the three cards that had been trapped within.

“Holy shit,” Jordi said from where he stood nearby, still partially naked himself and sounding as though he very much approved of Aiden’s current behavior.

Aiden reached into the display cabinet and pulled the central card out from its perfect position in the now smashed cabinet.

“You know, not complaining or anything,” Jordi muttered, “but that thing wasn’t even locked. You wanted those things you could have just lifted the glass up rather than smashing it.”

Aiden flicked some glass and what he suspected might have been a single drop of his cum off the card and held it up triumphantly.

“I thought we were destroying everything,” he said.

The card in his hand was the one that had been staring at Aiden so brazenly as Jordi had been fucking him into the cabinet, and it needed to pay. Jordi stared at Aiden with wide eyes and obvious fascination on his face as Aiden brought the offending card up to his mouth and gripped one corner of it between his teeth.

He wrenched the card as hard as he could, his mouth and hand quickly tearing it into two. Aiden let half of the card fall from his hand and spat the other half onto the ground. He then reached into the cabinet and grabbed the two remaining cards, tearing them both into several pieces with his hand alone and soon reducing them to little more than a few small scraps of card, which he let fall to the floor.

“Holy shit,” Jordi laughed, having watched Aiden’s whole display extremely closely. “I don’t know shit about these things Aiden, but you know those things are worth a lot, right? You probably just destroyed thousands, maybe even millions of dollars’ worth of stupid baseball crap.”

Aiden shrugged.

“I was always more of a hockey guy anyway,” he said.

Jordi laughed in response to that. He strode over to Aiden, stepping over the remains of the three cards as he did, his expensive shoes meaning that the shards of glass that lay on the ground near them didn’t bother him one bit.

He moved a little closer to Aiden, wrapping his arms loosely around the other man’s waist and bringing their bodies closer together.

“Jesus Christ Pearce,” he said, shaking his head. “You can be such a fucking dork sometimes.”

Aiden was about to object, but before he could he found that his mouth was already occupied, Jordi having leaned in to claim Aiden’s lips in a slow, searing kiss.

It took a moment for Aiden to respond to the surprisingly romantic gesture, but eventually he let his arms fall loosely around Jordi’s shoulders. The fixer’s tongue started to plunder Aiden’s mouth as soon as Aiden allowed him access. Jordi’s mouth still tasted like peppermint.

Jordi backed him up against the glass cabinet once more, Aiden letting out a pleased groan as he did. He was so wrapped up in the feeling of Jordi’s mouth on his own that it took him a while to realize that he had been guided into a less than ideal position. In fact it wasn’t until he felt a sharp pain in his lower back that he remembered the glass of the cabinet had been completely smashed.

He pushed Jordi off. The fixer looked confused for all of a moment, but Aiden didn’t bother explaining. Instead he reached around and pressed a hand to his back, cursing beneath his breath when it came away covered in blood.

“Ah, shit,” Jordi cursed.

The fixer moved and gently prompted Aiden to turn around, inspecting the cut on Aiden’s back himself.

“Sorry,” he muttered. “Should have seen that one coming. Doesn’t look too bad though; pretty shallow and no longer than an inch long. Still, that one’s on me.”

“We should probably move,” Aiden commented.

“What? You don’t want to tend to that scratch first?”

It couldn’t have been a very big scratch. After all, it didn’t feel bad and Aiden was sure Jordi’s reaction would have been far more severe if he was actually bleeding all over the place.

Instead of giving Jordi an actual reply Aiden threw his arms around Jordi’s shoulders and began to kiss him again. Jordi responded eagerly, although Aiden noticed that Jordi faltered a bit as he placed his hands on Aiden’s bare back, clearly not wanting to disturb the fresh cut.

Jordi slowly backed up towards the nearest free stretch of wall, bringing Aiden with him. Before too long Aiden was pressing the fixer up against the wall, their mouths locked together and their tongues busily exploring one another’s mouths.

Aiden’s cock had yet to harden once more, but he didn’t mind. This; just making out with Jordi like they were nothing more than a couple of horny teenagers? This was nice; satisfying in a way that their session against the glass cabinet hadn’t been, and Aiden sighed happily as he leaned in to Jordi, their bare chests pressing against one another. Aiden hadn’t realized until that moment how much he actually liked the taste of peppermint, and chased after it hungrily.

Jordi’s hands roamed over Aiden’s back, as gentle and careful as Aiden suspected Jordi knew how to be, always avoiding the fresh cut on Aiden’s back and not, at least for the time being, attempting to pursue anything more sexual than simple caresses. There would be time enough later for another round of sex. They both seemed to understand that. For now, this sort of intimacy would be enough.

Aiden had let himself get lost in Jordi’s kisses and caresses for quite a while when they both felt and heard Aiden’s phone go off again. They pulled back from the kiss for a moment, both of them looking down at the offending tech in Aiden’s pocket.

“Shit,” Aiden muttered as he reached in and pulled the phone out. After the last alert he would have to be a fool to ignore it. “Sorry.”

Some cops had just pulled up in front of Petersen’s house, and in Aiden’s opinion their timing could not have been worse.

Even as he stared at the alert on his phone Aiden realized he could hear two cops talking to each other at the front of the house. Their words were completely muffled thanks to the walls that lay between them and the vault, but the sound of car doors closing behind them was not.

“Chicago PD,” Aiden informed Jordi.

“Shit,” Jordi whispered, echoing Aiden’s sentiment. “We should probably leave before they find the bodies in the living room this time.”

Aiden nodded his agreement.

“Or,” Jordi whispered as he picked up his shirt from off the floor. “We could just kill them too.”

“Jordi!” Aiden hissed through clenched teeth. “Haven’t you already killed enough people in this house?”

Jordi rolled his eyes at Aiden but conceded pretty quickly regardless, and before long the two of them were both frantically trying to get dressed once more and to gather their belongings.

Luckily the police didn’t seem to be in any real hurry. Aiden caught only a few snatches of conversation, in between shrugging on his jacket and making sure he hadn’t left any of his belongings lying on the floor beneath a pile of baseball cards, and it sounded very much like the two police offers hadn’t taken the alert they had received from Umeni security seriously and weren’t expecting to find anything at all.

Boy, were they going to be in for a surprise.

After a brief conversation mostly devoid of actual words and more reliant on frantic hand gestures and pointed eye-movements, Jordi and Aiden decided to leave the house via the back door and the house’s very small backyard.

They heard the front door being pushed open right as they closed the back one.

“What the fuck!?” one of the cops yelled, and then Aiden and Jordi were both running through the backyard and climbing over the back fence as fast as they possibly could.

Together they climbed and ran until they were into the next street and well and truly away from the police. Behind them Aiden heard a police siren start up, and wondered for a moment whether he and Jordi might need to start running some more. Hell, perhaps he should have just let Jordi kill the two cops after all. What were two dead CPD officers compared to some of the carnage they had both committed?

Well, usually Aiden’s carnage at least was tied to something more important than a hook-up that had just managed to go disastrously wrong.

It _hadn’t_ been that bad though, had it? Well, admittedly one man had actually _died_ and most people would probably say that immediately meant that yes, something had gone disastrously wrong, and Aiden’s second orgasm had been less than stunning but Aiden had enjoyed the rest of it, or well… most of it at least.

Aiden gasped as the next leap caused his body to remind him of the gash on his back that he had all but forgotten about until that moment.

“Damn it,” Jordi muttered as they landed right in the middle of someone’s petunias, “I’m going to have to abandon that car.”

Aiden thought of the station wagon that Jordi had shown up in. It didn’t seem like that much of a loss to him.

“You’re actually worried about that thing?” he asked as the two of them started to walk in a seemingly random direction that offered nothing except the prospect of being further away from the sirens and the dead bodies.

“It had sentimental value,” Jordi protested.

“Of course it did,” Aiden said, rolling his eyes and making sure that Jordi could see him do it. “How long have you had this one for?”

“A few days,” Jordi admitted. “But it had a lot of character and I actually sort of paid for this one.”

‘Sort of paid.’ Aiden knew Jordi’s usual methods, and some of his contacts as well. Jordi might have paid for the piece of shit they had driven in, but he certainly hadn’t acquired it through legal channels.

The two of them continued to walk. At first Aiden assumed they would just continue on foot until they spotted a suitable car to steal, and yet they both walked past easily a dozen vehicles that would be both relatively easy to steal and much better than the piece of shit Jordi had abandoned back at the house.

Jordi chattered away about everything and nothing and Aiden barely saying anything at all. It was strangely comfortable in a way.

Their feet ended up taking them up into the hills, where houses, streets and cars grew slightly more sparse and still continued on. If Jordi had any particular destination in mind then he certainly hadn’t told Aiden as much. They ended up on top of a hill that was relatively free of trees and which gave them an excellent view of the surrounding area.

“Well, this seems nice enough,” Jordi declared, before sitting down on a seemingly random patch of ground.

The first signs of dawn were starting to make themselves known on the horizon, twilight slowly reaching out to cover suburban Chicago. Aiden considered the glowing light in the east, and then the man sitting on the ground nearby him.

“What are we doing here Jordi?” he asked the fixer.

Jordi shrugged.

Aiden wasn’t sure whether it was comforting or not to know that Jordi seemed to have no more of an idea of what they were doing than Aiden did. Aiden considered heading off by himself, but instead he ended up sitting down on the ground beside Jordi. The grass was cold and damp with condensation, but Aiden’s jacket kept out most of it.

“You know we left a real mess back there, right?” Jordi eventually asked.

Aiden cringed. The fixer had a point.

“A lot of DNA…” Jordi continued. “I don’t like it. I’m used to cleaning things up properly, you know what I’m saying here Pearce?”

“We left in a hurry,” Aiden said. “Not much that we could do.”

“Yeah. Sure,” Jordi said. He did not sound convinced.

“Hey, do I need to remind you that this whole thing was  _your_  idea?” Aiden snapped.

“No, no,” Jordi said, tearing off a long piece of grass in front of him and slowly tearing it to shreds. “I get it. I’m not fucking blaming anybody Pearce. I’m just annoyed by it. It’s not like me to be so sloppy.”

“It’s not like either of us,” Aiden pointed out.

Jordi had a point. They had been sloppy, first with the security guard and then with their retreat from the police. Their little arrangement was already making fools out of both of them. This was just one of the many reasons why Aiden had initially thought that a relationship with Jordi would be stupid, no matter how much emotional distance they had managed to maintain between them.

“I’ll hack into the CPD database in a couple of days and make sure all of the CSI files are wiped,” Aiden eventually offered. “They’ll probably be able to spot my digital signature if they actually give enough of a shit to check it out; it’s infamous enough these days, but at least you won’t be connected to this at all.”

Jordi leaned back, attempting to make himself comfortable on the cold, wet ground, and stared over at the rapidly lightening horizon.

Aiden tried to do the same. It was difficult to relax though. When he looked down at the small, winding streets they had just escaped from, he could still see the flashing blue and red lights of a police car, and wondered if it was the one that had been called to investigate Petersen’s house.

He was hyper-aware of the man sitting next to him as well. When he sniffed the air around them he made out not only the scent of clover and dew, but the sweet, musky smell of Jordi’s expensive cologne, and the faint, bitter stench of sex that clung to them both. He found himself shuffling closer to the other man, not close enough that they were touching, but close enough that he could sense the other man’s warmth.

For a while neither of them said anything. They just sat there side by side, watching the sky change from black to grey-blue to gold. Aiden realized it had been a long time since he had allowed himself to just sit back and admire something beautiful like this. It seemed more than a little strange that he was doing it with Jordi Chin of all people.

“What the fuck are we doing here Pearce?” Jordi eventually asked, not taking his eyes away from the now brilliant horizon.

“Don’t ask me,” Aiden replied. “I just followed you.”

Jordi let out a long loud sigh and let the tiny pieces of torn grass he had held between his fingers fall to the ground beside him.  

“It’s probably safe for us to leave now,” Jordi said. “You can make your own way home, right?”

“Of course,” Aiden replied.

Neither of them moved. They just continued to sit there in silence, both staring out at the sun as it rose over the city.

“You know,” Jordi began to speak again. “It’s been such a long fucking time since I just sat there and watched the sun rise or any sort of shit like this.”

“Yeah,” Aiden said. “Me either.”

The discovery that he and Jordi had been thinking very similar things should not have been a pleasant one, but nevertheless it made Aiden smile.

“It’s nice,” Jordi conceded.

They fell into silence once more. Aiden wasn’t sure whether it had just been him slowly inching closer to Jordi as they sat or whether Jordi had been doing the same thing, but soon their sides were pressed against one another. It wasn’t a particularly cold morning, which was to say that they didn’t need to press together for warmth. The touch, like the sunrise in front of them and the distant call of birdsong was just… well… nice.

“You know what would make this absolutely fucking perfect?” Jordi asked.

Aiden didn’t answer. He knew that Jordi would continue whether or not he actually said anything. Instead he just smiled as he watched Jordi gesture, his hands flying around with their usual theatrical flourish.

“Mushrooms,” Jordi announced with a smile.

“Magic ones?” Aiden asked.

“Yeah, of course magic ones. Assuming you mean fucking drugs and not… shit, I don’t know. What the fuck is that enhanced reality game you fucking play with the mushrooms where you’re bouncing around all over the place?”

“Psychedelic?” Aiden asked. “Actually that’s flowers.”

“Yeah, whatever you fucking nerd,” Jordi said, a surprisingly fond smile on his face despite the insult. “The point is, yeah, I was talking about drugs.”

“I didn’t know you did that sort of thing,” Aiden commented. Considering Jordi’s criminal background Aiden probably shouldn’t have been surprised, but Jordi always seemed so focused when he was on the job.

“I used to,” Jordi explained. “Don’t anymore. That stuff can really mess you up. Nothing worse than a head full of butterflies when you’re trying to put a bullet in between the eyes of some bastard on the other side of the river. You have to keep a steady hand in my line of work. No, I’m afraid I don’t do anything anymore except alcohol, and even that is in relatively small amounts, especially compared to what I hear you can put away.”

Aiden decided not to get riled up over that particular stab at his bad habits.

“Champagne could make this pretty nice too,” Aiden offered instead.

“Yeah, I guess it would,” Jordi agreed. “You know, I would suggest that the two of us go and get breakfast together, but…”

He shrugged.

“There’s a place not far from here that does good pancakes,” Aiden offered.

Jordi scoffed at that suggestion.

“What have you got against pancakes?” Aiden asked the other man.

“I have nothing against pancakes,” the fixer replied. “Getting pancakes with you however…”

“What?” Aiden said, frowning at the other man.

“Well, this is just sex right?” Jordi asked, and if Aiden didn’t know any better than he would have thought that Jordi wasn’t actually sure of the answer to that question himself. “Are we really the sort of couple that would go and get pancakes together?”

Jordi had used the word ‘couple’ which was weird. Aiden wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

“I don’t know,” he replied, completely honestly. “Are we?”

Jordi apparently didn’t have an answer for that. Aiden wasn’t sure why getting pancakes together that morning should feel any different than ordering pizza during that night in the penthouse had. It did though, and Aiden wasn’t entirely sure why.

He didn’t say anything though; just turned his attention away from the sunrise and towards the man sitting on the hill beside him. There was a red mark on Jordi’s neck where Aiden had gotten a little too eager with his teeth, and Aiden knew his nails had left faint red lines all down Jordi’s back.

It was quite a long time before either of them spoke again.

* * *

It was over an hour before either of them got to their feet. In that time Aiden had moved to rest his head on Jordi’s shoulder. Surprisingly Jordi hadn’t complained, and after a while Aiden had felt one of Jordi’s arms move to wrap loosely around Aiden’s waist.

Eventually Jordi’s stomach started to complain loudly and he got to his feet, pausing to stretch his arms above his head. Aiden immediately missed the other man’s warmth.

“Well Pearce,” Jordi said. “It’s been fun, but I’ve got a client to check in with.”

For a moment Aiden considered suggesting again that they get breakfast together. He was pretty hungry and Jordi was as well if the noises his stomach had been making were any indication. He understood now though. It was too fond a gesture, intimate in a way that having sex wasn’t. Getting pancakes would feel like a date, like the sort of morning after thing that a couple would do. Jordi had used the word earlier, but that didn’t mean that they were one; not really.

“You’ll take care of the evidence,” Jordi continued, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the streets they had come from as he did. “Right?”

“Of course,” Aiden replied.

Aiden stretched his legs out. He had been curled up with Jordi for so long that they had gone numb in spots.

“All right,” Jordi said. “Well, I’ll be seeing you Pearce.”

And with that Jordi was leaving.

Aiden turned around to watch him walk off. The last tinges of gold had almost disappeared from the sunrise, but there was still something beautiful about the way it lit Jordi’s hair and suit. Aiden spotted a few dark smudges on the other man’s rear and trouser legs; dirt from their unexpected sunrise viewing, and found himself chuckling softly at the sight. He wondered how annoyed Jordi was going to be when he spotted the stains on his undoubtedly expensive suit.

For a moment Aiden considered calling out. He wasn’t sure what he intended to say; whether he would let Jordi know about the stains on his pants or whether he would just beg Jordi to stay with him a little longer, but suddenly the fact that the other man was walking away from him was almost too much to bear.

Aiden wanted him to stay. He longed for one more taste of peppermint on Jordi’s lips.

Aiden froze, any words that he might have used to call out after Jordi dying on his tongue as he recognized the fond feelings in his heart for what they were.

He knew that he had terrible taste in men. If his previous relationship with Damien Brenks had not proven that then the fact that he had willingly slept with Jordi Chin not only once, but three times now, and had every intention of doing so again certainly did.

The man was a violent psychopath, unpredictable, unstable and more than that, a constant source of irritation. And yet, Aiden could not stop thinking about the other man’s touches, about how nice it had been to just sit there and watch the sunrise with him, about how warm and comfortable the other man’s arms and shoulder had been, about how dark Jordi’s eyes were when they looked at Aiden while they were making love… No, not making love. He and Jordi fucked. There was no love-making happening. Absolutely no love-making.

And Aiden wasn’t in love. He was just unexpectedly attached to the man that he was having sex with  and didn’t want him to leave because, well… because falling in love with Jordi would be the worst possible thing that he could ever conceivably do with his life; the stupidest, most ridiculous…

“Oh fuck no…” Aiden muttered as he brought up his hand to cover the lower half of his face. “You idiot.”

He must be the stupidest person in all of Chicago, because he had actually fallen in love with Jordi Chin.


	3. Plus One

Aiden knew that he was completely fucked. After all, what sort of an idiot developed romantic feelings for Jordi-fucking-Chin of all people? The man was a psychopath, more inclined towards violence and mayhem than sweet domestic bliss.

Aiden didn’t even know what it was about the other man that had him so confused. Jordi’s voice was irritating, as were his stupid designer suits and his awful sense of humour. Perhaps it was the way the other man moved. When fighting hand to hand or taking out a target Jordi was a thing of beauty; each movement calculated precisely to do as much damage as physically possible. But it had been a while since they had worked together, each of them busy with their own jobs and neither of them really calling on the other for backup. If anything they spent more time together either fucking or just hanging out, which logically should have made Aiden like Jordi less rather than more.

_Perhaps it’s just hormones_ , Aiden told himself. _After all, it had been two years since I’d had sex with anyone when the first Incident with Jordi happened. Sex produces all of the hormones associated with falling in love. All of these feelings that are confusing me; they’re just chemicals in the body. I can ignore them if I want to._

On some days Aiden could even make himself believe it.

At first he was worried about how his interactions with Jordi would go now that he was aware of the true nature of his feelings. Surely the other man would be able to notice, and as soon as Jordi noticed everything would undoubtedly go to hell.

The first couple of times they met up after The Realisation Aiden was a nervous wreck. Jordi didn’t seem to notice that anything was wrong though, and after a little bit of teasing and a few prompts to ‘relax Pearce, this is supposed to be enjoyable, and for fuck’s sake tell me if there’s anything about what I’m doing that you actually don’t like’ they settled into what, for them, now passed as normal interactions. Jordi would fuck him into blissful oblivion, each and every time bringing out a needy, desperate part of Aiden that Aiden barely recognised as part of himself.

He clung to Jordi, his hands scraping down the other man’s back, or he rode him, legs clenching tightly around Jordi’s waist or legs, or they took each other in their mouths, their mutual moans of pleasure vibrating through each other, and all the while Aiden nursed what felt like a great and terrible secret.

He found himself craving the other man’s kisses, the soft touch of Jordi’s hands running down his skin, even just the sight of the other man’s stupid smirk, just as much as the sex itself. It was infuriating. Aiden could deal with the lust by losing himself in Jordi’s arms, but the love refused to dissipate, no matter how desperately Aiden wished that it would.

He tried to lose himself in his vigilante work, but that only did so much. He still helped out where he could, taking down street gangs and corrupt police officers, but after the sprawling, all-encompassing shit-show that had been Damien Brenks walking back into his life it all seemed so straight-forward by comparison, and it was a far cry from the stimulating distraction that he so desperately needed. He knew that he probably took his anger out a little too much on a few of the criminals and assholes he took down over those months. He didn’t regret it; they had all deserved everything he had given them and probably more besides, but he _was_ a little worried for himself and for what this lack of control meant for his relationship with Jordi.

_What the fuck am I going to do?_ Aiden asked himself. _I can’t keep going on like this. Something has to give in eventually. I should stop. I need to stop._

Several times Aiden tried to distance himself from Jordi, but he only ever made it a week or two. Either Jordi would contact him and Aiden would give in nearly as soon as he heard the rich purr of Jordi’s voice, or the longing to see Jordi again would grow too great and Aiden would find himself dialling the fixer’s number, and Jordi would always agree to whatever hook-up Aiden suggested.

Aiden Pearce soon realised that he had become an addict.

He was right about one thing though; eventually something had to break.

* * *

“Are you busy?” Jordi asked. The tone of his voice made Aiden suspect that this particular call was not in relation to a potential job, but something a lot more personal.

_Be cool_ , he told himself. The trick was to act as normal as possible. If Jordi had any suspicion of how far Aiden had let his feelings get away from him then he would undoubtedly bring their arrangement to a swift and decisive end.

“Jordi?” he said, unable to stop the smile on his face from making itself known in the tone of his voice. _Be cool_ , he reminded himself. _Hell, better yet, be sexy. Sweep Jordi off his fucking feet_.

Why not, right? He was sure that he could seduce Jordi if he wanted to.

“Is this a booty call?” Aiden asked, pleased with how confident he had managed to sound.

Jordi’s voice when he replied was deep and rich, liquid honey that did far more to Aiden then he was willing to admit.

“You know it is Pearce,” the fixer purred.

_Be cool. Be confident. Be sexy. Knock the fucking fixer’s stupid designer socks right off._

“I er…” Aiden began, not sure whether he was feeling confident or just plain stupid, “might be able to squeeze you in.”

He cringed, but the laughter and delight that echoed back to him over the phone told him that the line had been more successful than he had predicted.

“Holy shit Pearce!” Jordi practically screamed. “Was that a fucking sex joke?”

Aiden scoffed. Damn it; Jordi could make his voice sound seductive even when he was laughing. 

“You know it was,” Aiden replied.

He wasn’t sure how seductive he had managed to sound that time, but Jordi was pleased with it regardless if the humming noise he made over the phone was any indication.

“Where are you?” Jordi asked, his voice once more a deep purr.

“On Ashland, heading north,” Aiden answered. “I swear, if you ask me what I’m wearing next then I’m hanging up on you.”

“No need,” Jordi replied. “It’ll be the same shitty hobo-chic jacket as usual I’m guessing. Oh, you know your stupid fucking jackets always get me so hard Aiden.”

Aiden considered defending his wardrobe but knew it was pointless.

“Meet at our usual penthouse?” Aiden asked.

The penthouse that they had borrowed from Jordi’s dead client had become a regular hook-up location for them. It was neutral ground. Aiden didn’t have to worry about giving away the location of any of his hideouts, or what might happen if he let Jordi pick their location. No-one connected to the building seemed to notice that the owner of the penthouse suite was dead either.

The third time Aiden had met Jordi there he had nearly jumped out of his skin when the woman at the front desk had greeted him politely. He had been expecting her to challenge him or tell him that the security cameras had identified them, but instead she just passed him what appeared to be some sort of community newsletter for the building and gave him an extremely cheery grin.

This time Aiden found Jordi waiting for him in the foyer, leaning against the wall right by the elevator and looking for all the world as though he belonged there. He smiled when he caught sight of Aiden and pushed himself up off the wall. Aiden found himself returning the other man’s smile, despite the not-insignificant part of himself that told him he should suppress it.

_I’m going to get caught_ , he found himself thinking. _Damn it. If Jordi realises how happy I always am to see him then he’s going to work out how I feel. If he works out how I feel then it’s going to be over between the two of us. I can’t let that happen._

“Hey Pearce,” Jordi said as he swaggered over to Aiden, all smooth lines and confidence.

Aiden found himself staring at Jordi’s hands, imagining what they might be doing in a few minutes when the two of them retired to the penthouse, and then he couldn’t help but smile.

The two of them moved to the elevator, Aiden hacking open the door as he had every time the two of them had met up there, and before long they were on their way, standing side by side, leaning against the back of the elevator.

It wasn’t always like this. There had been at least one occasion when the two of them had locked lips almost as soon as the elevator doors had closed. By the time they had made it to the penthouse they had both been almost naked. This time however their clothes remained on, at least for the time being.

“You know, we’re probably pushing our luck by meeting up here so often,” Aiden pointed out to the fixer.

Jordi just shrugged.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” he said, folding his arms in front of his chest and looking quite comfortable in his place. “Everyone here probably just thinks you own the place. Have you ever met the cleaner? Little old lady nearly shit herself when she entered the room to find me there.”

“When was this?” Aiden asked. He hadn’t realised that Jordi had been visiting the penthouse without him.

“I don’t know. About a week ago.”

“You got up here without me?” Aiden asked. “How?”

“Give me _some_ credit Pearce,” Jordi said, and Aiden wondered whether the other man was going to claim he had actually picked up enough hacking knowledge from watching Aiden (which did not seem at all likely) or whether he was going to say he had somehow charmed the woman at the front bench into giving him a copy of the access card (and Aiden didn’t want to admit how much more likely that option was. They really _had_ been spending too much time there.)

“I went back to where I hid the real Raymond Bisson’s body and grabbed the card,” Jordi explained, and Aiden couldn’t help but groan. “Stole a couple of credit cards, a library card and a passport at the same time. Figure if we’re going to steal the guy’s identity then we might as well go all the way.”

“You had a key card for the hotel?” Aiden asked. “But today you were just waiting for me in the lobby, and you just stood there while I hacked us up. Jordi…”

Sometimes Aiden really wasn’t sure why he put up with the other man’s bullshit.

Jordi leaned over towards Aiden, one of his hands sliding around Aiden’s waist and pulling him closer. Aiden was frustrated enough that for a moment he considered pushing Jordi away, but then the fixer’s mouth pressed against his own and Aiden was melting against the other man.

Their lips stayed locked until they reached the penthouse floor and the chiming of the elevator and the swishing open of the doors brought them out of their mutual reverie.

Jordi pulled away from Aiden first, stepping into the middle of the penthouse with his usual amount of grace and confidence.

“I was waiting _for you_ ,” Jordi said, a wide grin on his face, and Aiden couldn’t help but feel as though somehow the other man was teasing him. “I wanted to see you as soon as possible Pearce.”

Oh, Jordi was definitely teasing him. There was no way that he would spew out such sappy bullshit otherwise.

Aiden stormed out of the elevator, even more pissed off at himself and at Jordi that he had been before. He was so sick of being in love with the other man. He hated every second of it. Jordi’s words just then, as insincere as they had been, had been enough to make Aiden’s heart dance for a few seconds in a way that made Aiden extremely uncomfortable. He wanted to shout at Jordi, to tell Jordi how much of an insufferable idiot he was, to tell him just how pretentious Aiden thought his suits were, how every time Jordi smiled Aiden wanted to punch him right in the middle of his stupid, smug face.

Jordi had been leaning against the side of the apartment’s couch, a large, plush thing covered in pure white leather. Aiden practically charged right into him, his lips slamming against Jordi’s own in a kiss that was more of an attack than any display of affection, and the two of them went tumbling down onto the couch, Aiden on top of Jordi, a tangle of limbs and locked lips.

When they pulled apart for air Jordi looked up at Aiden with a look on his face that could only be described as hunger. Aiden’s mouth descended upon Jordi’s again, pinning him against the couch. Jordi welcomed Aiden with open arms, pulling him closer and deepening the kiss as soon as Aiden would allow it.

Before long Jordi was bucking up against Aiden as they both struggled to remove their clothing. Neither of them said anything with actual words. It was all teeth and tongues, hands desperately scrabbling at each other’s bodies.

This time, when Aiden climbed atop Jordi’s waiting body and rode him into oblivion, it was Aiden’s idea, and Aiden who took the lead, although Jordi certainly didn’t seem to have any objections.

* * *

Eventually they ended up lying on the couch together, their legs entwined and Aiden’s head resting on Jordi’s chest. He listened to the too-fast beating of Jordi’s heart as they both recovered from what had been a desperate and frantic round of sex.

“Shit…” Jordi muttered as he stared at the ceiling. It was the first thing to even approach coherency that either of them had said since Aiden had sent them both tumbling onto the couch.

Jordi shifted a little so that he was halfway towards sitting up and therefore better able to observe Aiden. The hacker had been quite comfortable where he was, curled up on top of the other man and half wrapped around him, and let out a small noise of complaint as Jordi shifted. Jordi was skinny, but he was warm, and the feeling of the other man’s chest slowly shifting as he breathed in and out had been oddly comforting.

It had occurred to Aiden more than once since he had started sleeping with Jordi that he might have been a little touch-starved. Now, lying on top of the other man, his lust freshly sated and his skin touching Jordi’s in almost as many places as was physically possible, Aiden found himself wrapped up in pure, unadulterated bliss.

“How are you doing Pearce?” Jordi asked as one of his hands threaded through Aiden’s hair. Aiden realised it was probably getting too long if Jordi could do that so easily. He needed to get it cut again soon. For now though he was just going to enjoy Jordi’s touch and stay right where he was for as long as the other man would let him.

“Pearce…” Jordi prompted in a soft, lyrical voice, and Aiden realised he hadn’t answered the other man’s question.

“I’m fine,” Aiden tried to say, but it came out as little more than a muffled ‘mmph’.

“Well, now that we’ve gotten the most important part of this meeting out of the way,” Jordi said, “by which, of course, I obviously mean the sex (which we’re still absolutely fucking amazing at by the way) I have something I need to confess.”

That woke Aiden out of his bliss-filled daze quicker than anything else Jordi could have said. For just a moment he was actually deluded enough to think that Jordi might be going to say that he was in love with Aiden, but then he got over it. Jordi didn’t love him. This was nothing but sex to Jordi, and Aiden knew that was all it ever would be to him.

“This wasn’t just a booty call,” Jordi continued.

“Really?” Aiden asked, careful to look disinterested.

“Really,” Jordi said. “Actually, I was kind of hoping we could work together on another job.”

“You need my help,” Aiden translated.

“Your assistance would make this a hell of a lot easier,” Jordi conceded. “So, I’ve got a contract…”

“I’m not helping you kill somebody,” Aiden argued. It wasn’t as though he necessarily had anything against killing, although he did sometimes find Jordi’s methods to be unsavoury and needlessly violent. It was just that part of him was sore that Jordi _hadn’t_ confessed his undying love to Aiden and probably never would. Aiden knew he was being foolish and petty, but he couldn’t help it.

“You’re not,” Jordi continued. “You’re helping me track someone down. My current target is an elusive fucker. I have a lead though. My guy has done a few jobs lately for a member of the Russian mafia; one Eugene Golobev.”

“Come on Jordi,” Aiden prompted him with a sharp poke to the side. “Get to the point.”

“I’m getting there,” Jordi complained. “Sheesh Pearce. You really could learn how to be a bit more patient, you asshole.”

He paused to poke Aiden in retaliation before continuing.

“So yeah, Golobev and my guy are pretty close. Pretty sure I’m going to be able to get the information off his private servers. Thing is Golobev usually has pretty tight security, and he lives in this big old fuck-off mansion.”

“You want me to sneak in and get the data?” Aiden guessed. He was already wondering how much Jordi would be willing to pay him for the job, and whether it would truly be enough for Aiden to risk going up against the Bratva.

That brought a grin to Jordi’s face. Not only that but he began to run a hand up and down Aiden’s back, caressing it in a way which Aiden guessed was supposed to be comforting, but which was just getting him all revved up again and ready for a second round of sex.

“It’s easier than that actually,” Jordi said before leaning down and placing a kiss on Aiden’s forehead. “Golobev is holding a huge party at his place in a couple of days’ time. Hundreds of people are going to be there, and our old friend Raymond Bisson received an invite. I’ve got some of Bisson’s ID on hand already, so I figure I rock up to the party as Bisson, you come as my plus one, we stay just long enough for you to get the data from Golobev’s system and then we slip back out again.”

“And hope no-one asks after the real Bisson,” Aiden muttered. All in all it was a pretty solid plan. He was trying to come up with some sort of reason to reject the job offer, but it was pretty hard.

“What if someone recognizes me?” Aiden asked.

“They won’t,” Jordi said as he gently ruffled Aiden’s hair. “Not once we get you all suited up. Half of your identity is the mask and cap and jacket and shit. We get you in a nice suit with an expensive watch and actually do something about your god damn hair and no-one is going to have any idea that the gorgeous man on my arm is actually Chicago’s most wanted vigilante.”

Jordi continued to run one of his hands through Aiden’s hair and the other over the skin of Aiden’s back. Aiden continued trying to think of any reason at all to avoid helping Jordi out. He really didn’t do parties. He hadn’t really been good at socializing even before he had become a wanted criminal.

“All right,” Aiden finally conceded, earning himself another kiss on the forehead from Jordi.

* * *

“Hey there sexy,” Jordi said as he stepped out of a very expensive-looking car. He grinned at Aiden with one of the widest Cheshire-cat grins Aiden had ever seen on the other man’s face.

At Jordi’s insistence Aiden had donned a dark blue suit, dress shirt and shoes, as well as a watch and necklace, purely because Jordi had insisted that any fake boyfriend of his was ‘damn well going to be wearing at least a little bit of bling. I take care of what’s mine, right Pearce?’ Aiden still hadn’t worked out whether Jordi had meant the fictional him or the real him, but Jordi hadn’t really expected an answer from Aiden either way, and so Aiden had said nothing in exchange.

When Aiden had caught a glimpse of the price tag attached to the shirt Jordi planned to buy for him he had been stunned, and had tried to argue over it.

“Jesus Christ,” Jordi just replied, rolling his eyes at Aiden. “Consider it a fucking perk or something; part of your payment for helping me do this job. You want to sneak in to Golobev’s, you’re going to need to look the part. Seriously Pearce, chill. It’s not that big a deal.”

They had both gotten dressed in the penthouse apartment that was beginning to feel more like home than Aiden thought it should have. Aiden had stared at himself in the apartment’s full length mirror for a long time after getting dressed, barely able to recognise himself.

Aiden felt like somehow Jordi had marked Aiden as his property. He was covered in clothing that Jordi had paid for, was slipping into an expensive car that Jordi had either hired or stolen for the evening (Aiden refused to believe that the man had actually paid for a sports car this classy with actual money) and would probably be spending the entire evening on the other man’s arm.

He was sure that Jordi wouldn’t view anything about the arrangement as possessive. Jordi was nothing if not practical and professional. He had only paid for everything because it was all necessary for completing his current contract. He didn’t care about Aiden enough to try and claim him.

The car ride to Golobev’s ended up being fairly tense, at least for Aiden. Jordi seemed happy enough, but the suit that he was wearing wasn’t all that different from what he chose to wear on most days, and the fixer undoubtedly didn’t have to worry about potentially giving away the fact that he was in love with his partner.

Aiden found his eyes drifting over to Jordi as they travelled, to the way the other man’s long, talented fingers caressed the gear stick and the steering wheel in front of him, or to the cut of Jordi’s suit as it hugged his body perfectly. Jordi always managed to look so effortlessly stylish and sleek, just like the sports car he was currently driving. He’d undoubtedly be at his most charming that night as well, full of wit and humour and all the stupid, god-forsaken things that Aiden was now beginning to suspect were what had made him fall in love with Jordi in the first place.

Usually he wasn’t too worried about giving himself away, but tonight was undoubtedly going to be a problem.

“So this is the place,” Jordi said, pulling Aiden out of his reverie.

He hadn’t even realized that the car had stopped until Jordi spoke. That was not a good sign. His relationship with Jordi really was messing him up if he was becoming so unaware of his surroundings.

Jordi had pulled the car up in front of the largest house in a street full of abnormally large houses. It was already night, but plenty of spotlights had been placed around the driveway, garden, and the enormous fountain that they had pulled up right alongside, so that Aiden and Jordi and all of the other, more legitimate guests could tell exactly how well the house and grounds had been taken care of.

Aiden stepped out of the car and glanced around the garden.

“How far outside of Chicago are we?” he asked.

“Not as far as you’d think,” Jordi answered, closing his own door behind him and passing the keys to a rather young-looking valet that was standing nearby.

Aiden silently tried to calculate how many millions Golobev had paid for his home. Whatever the answer was, Aiden was beginning to feel glad that Jordi had forced him to get dressed up. There was no way they would have been allowed inside otherwise.

Aiden stayed close to Jordi’s side as they walked towards the front of the house. He could already hear loud music coming from somewhere near the back of Golobev’s enormous three-storey mansion. Aiden tucked his arm into Jordi’s, doing his best to look like they were doing nothing more than engaging in the level of intimacy a normal couple usually would, and leaned over to whisper in his ear.

“How many people are going to be at this thing?” Aiden asked, beginning to worry that the two of them might stand out more than he had anticipated. He felt so fake walking up to the doors of this enormous house like he actually belonged there, and not only because he and Jordi were planning to get in using a dead man’s invitation.

Jordi didn’t respond for a moment, and Aiden saw a flash of worry pass over the other man’s face.

“Come on,” Jordi said, not bothering to whisper as Aiden had. “Big important guy like Golobev? He’s going to want to show off for all of his Bratva friends. The way I hear it they’re trying to get in bed with the Chinese as well. There’s bound to be a tonne of people here, right? No-one’s going to notice the two of us.”

Aiden wasn’t completely convinced, but he forced himself to swallow his fear as they approached the doorman at the front of the building. The man looked completely bored as he asked for their invitation. Jordi handed over Bisson’s personal invite, and Aiden found himself wishing that he hadn’t allowed Jordi to talk him into leaving most of his weaponry at the penthouse. As it was he had only managed to sneak his baton beneath his jacket when Jordi’s back had been turned. The tip of it dug into his stomach when he moved the wrong way, but the feeling of it in that moment was more comforting than he could have put into words.

Of course he always had his phone. Jordi and the Bratva couldn’t take _that_ from him.

“Good evening Mister Bisson,” the doorman replied with a deep, drawling voice. “Please enjoy yourself.”

He gestured for the two of them to step inside the house. Between a couple of carefully placed security guards and some equally carefully placed decorations, the two of them were successfully shepherded through the mansion’s foyer, and towards the back of the building. As they passed through Aiden took the chance to survey Golobev’s mansion, trying to pick up on anything that might their job a little easier.

There was no sign of a server or personal computer, but that wasn’t saying much. The building was enormous, and Aiden was sure that he and Jordi had not seen even a tenth of the rooms while being led through it.

The sound of music grew louder as they approached the back of the house. As they stepped through the back door they were greeted with a wave of noise, and any fears that Aiden had that they would be too conspicuous were immediately put to rest.

Golobev had spared no expense. Half of his back yard was taken up by a big concreted entertainment area as large as any nightclub in Chicago. A DJ had set up in one corner, and was playing lo-fi hip-hop at a volume that sent the beat of the song thrumming through Aiden’s entire body. Dozens of people were already dancing or mingling in small groups around the edge of the dance floor or in different corners of the garden. The whole thing was lit by a mixture of soft red and blue lanterns and a handful of spotlights which were in theory directed at the dancefloor, but which roamed freely to nearly every corner of the party.

Jordi leaned in close to Aiden again.

“See?” he said, having to yell over the sound of the party, despite how close together they were. “Told you we’d be fine.”

“Golobev’s definitely trying to impress somebody,” Aiden replied.

He glanced around the area, already trying to work out how the two of them might be able to sneak back inside the house. It would be easy enough to lose themselves in the crowd, but the house itself seemed pretty closely guarded.

Aiden’s hand itched to grab his phone and scan the house. There would undoubtedly be a security camera or two somewhere inside that he would be able to exploit, and he would be very surprised if, in a house this size, there wasn’t at least one window or door somewhere that had been left open.

“So, should we split up?” Aiden asked.

Jordi shrugged.

“I guess we’ll cover more ground that way,” the fixer conceded.

“Well, whatever we do, we should at least start scouting the area,” Aiden said. “I don’t want to spend any longer here than I have to.”

“Jesus Christ Pearce,” Jordi said, grabbing a glass of champagne from a caterer who was passing by with a large platter of them. “Try to relax, okay?”

Jordi had a point, but Aiden knew that he would not be able to relax. The longer they were here, the more likely it would be that either or both of them would be forced to mingle and socialize, and the greater the chance was that someone would actually recognize Aiden Pearce. Jordi was lucky in that regard; his name was infamous in certain circles, but no-one really knew his face. Aiden’s had been plastered on every screen in Chicago, and unlike Jordi he was far from convinced that the suit would be enough of a disguise to protect him.

“Just don’t create too much of a scene,” Aiden said as he took his first hesitant step away from Jordi’s side. He had suddenly been gripped with horrible mental images of Jordi scarring half the guests and making himself far, far too memorable. After all, it was hard to imagine Jordi keeping a low profile.

“Seriously Pearce,” Jordi said, waving the still mostly full glass of champagne around as though it was one of his many guns. “Believe it or not, I can actually behave myself when the situation calls for it. I _am_ a professional, you know.”

Aiden didn’t know what he was supposed to say in response to that, so he said nothing at all. He just rolled his eyes and let Jordi walk off, although it didn’t escape his attention that Jordi’s hand lingered on his own for a moment just before parting, the fixer’s fingertips leaving a gentle caress as he parted.

Aiden shuddered. It was just a simple touch, but even those were often enough to cause him no end of distraction of late if they came from Jordi. He almost called out to the other man and asked him to stay. His hand suddenly felt cold without Jordi’s to warm it.

He allowed himself to watch Jordi for a moment before he got down to business, admiring the seemingly effortless way Jordi slid up to a group of guests and introduced himself. Jordi hadn’t been lying when he said that he was a professional. He had been an annoying asshole around Aiden for a long time now, but when Aiden had first contacted him with a job the fixer had been so charming and charismatic that it had almost disarmed Aiden. It had only taken a single job together for Jordi to start relaxing in Aiden’s presence and begin teasing Aiden, and so he had forgotten exactly how charming Jordi could be when he could actually be bothered to put the effort in.

Jordi grinned at a woman who had to be at least ten years older than himself, leaning in to say something that had her blushing like a schoolgirl and laughing loudly, despite the fact that there was a man on her other arm who had to be her husband, or at least a significant other of some description. The man didn’t even look all that put out, and all the while Jordi’s eyes were subtly casting about the place, looking, Aiden knew, for gaps in security or anything that might help the two of them complete their mission.

Aiden had absolutely no idea how Jordi did it. He made it look so effortless that Aiden already felt awkward and clumsy in comparison, and he hadn’t even begun to talk to people.

Nevertheless, Aiden swallowed, cast his eyes around the rest of the party, and then back at the house. He was sure he wouldn’t be able to blend in half as well as Jordi did. Better for him to play the wallflower; to make himself appear just as anti-social and unapproachable as he was feeling.

He found a relatively empty spot to lean against; not against the house itself; that was far too well lit; but against some garden edging; close enough to the party that it wouldn’t raise too much suspicion. He got his phone out and brought it up in front of him, not bothering to hide the action as he usually would. A man on his phone at such a party might look unsocial and a poor guest, but certainly not suspicious.

A subtle scowl would, with any luck, deter any who might wish to come up and talk to him. Not too much of a scowl, otherwise someone might try to approach him and comfort him; just enough to say that he didn’t want to be disturbed.

It was easy enough to hack into the mansion’s security cameras. They didn’t give him any idea as to how he and Jordi would infiltrate the house unspotted, but they did give him a good idea as to the layout of the house.

They also let him get a sneak peek of the house’s basement, which was far more sprawling than Aiden would have initially suspected, and which had clearly been set up as a base of operation for Golobev’s Bratva friends. The rooms were unoccupied and fairly dark, but Aiden spotted a weapons cache, what looked like some sort of office (a strange thing to keep locked away in your basement unless it was for illegal purposes) and, tucked away in one shadowy corner, the server that he would undoubtedly need to access to get the info Jordi was after.

Aiden tried to quickly memorise the layout of the house, particularly the basement floor, and then tucked his phone away. The rest of the plan, including the all-important matter of how they were going to get into the basement itself, would have to be worked out some other way.

The song changed, the beat of the music suddenly thrumming through Aiden’s entire body, and Aiden could feel his heart speed up just a tiny bit to match the music. It spread out from his heart and down his arms and legs, filling every inch of his body.

The lighting was hypnotic. They hadn’t gone overboard like in some of the clubs Aiden had seen, and weren’t flashing or moving in time to the music so much as softly pulsing, pale blue and gold lighting seemingly random patches of the party. Aiden wasn’t one to usually think in poetic terms, but it made the whole event seem somewhat magical, like something out of a half-remembered fever dream.

His steps seemed too light, and for a moment he wondered whether someone had slipped him something, but he hadn’t even had anything to drink yet.

He caught Jordi’s eyes from across the other side of the gathering. Jordi was flowing through the crowded space effortlessly, just as frustratingly elegant as he always was, a beautiful, spectral being that took Aiden’s breath away.

Aiden swallowed nervously. Suddenly his suit seemed too tight and he felt every bit the imposter he knew that he was. Surely at any moment someone would recognise him and call him out.

He managed to grab a glass of champagne from a passing caterer, knocking the alcohol back in one go and placing the empty glass back on the server’s tray before she had moved more than a few feet. He wasn’t sure that the alcohol had been such a smart idea, but he needed something to still his nerves, and the small amount that he had ingested would not be nearly enough to get him drunk.

He pushed through the crowd, not finding it nearly as effortless as Jordi made it look.

_Fuck Jordi_ , Aiden found himself thinking as he scanned the room, tracking the path that the data cables probably made around the walls and beneath the floors. _Fuck comparing myself to him. Fuck staring at him and getting caught up by him, no matter how fucking gorgeous and natural he looks in this sort of setting. Jordi always used to say that emotion makes you weak. He was right. I’m acting like a complete idiot. I need to focus._

Aiden had been focussing perhaps a little too much. When he felt the touch of a hand on his arm he jumped, whirled around and discovered that it was Jordi himself standing by his side.

“Hey,” Jordi said, grinning and leaning close, so that he was whispering directly in Aiden’s ear. “You spot a way in yet?”

The fixer’s arm wrapped in a mildly possessive manner around Aiden’s waist.

“Not really,” Aiden replied. “Got a good look inside the house though, and I have a feeling I know where we’ll find Golobev’s server. Basement floor, back right corner.”

He nodded in the vague direction he suspected, but Jordi wasn’t paying him any attention. Instead Jordi was leaning in closer, his lips hovering right above the skin of Aiden’s neck, his warm breath and the gentle sway of his body in time to the music making it very hard for Aiden to concentrate.

He wasn’t quite kissing Aiden’s neck, but he was close enough to it that when he smiled Aiden felt the curve of the other man’s mouth against his skin.

“Jesus Christ Pearce,” Jordi said, his tone seemingly bypassing the smile on his face. “We’re supposed to be a happy couple having fun at our friend’s party. Try to relax a bit and at least look like you’re happy to be here.”

“Maybe we’re having a fight,” Aiden suggested.

Jordi chuckled, leaned in, and did actually press a kiss to Aiden’s neck.

“Or maybe we’re just so fucking wrapped up in one another that we can’t really focus on anything else?” Jordi suggested.

Aiden tried to object, but at that moment Jordi pressed another kiss to his neck and all that emerged from Aiden’s mouth in response was a small groan of pleasure.

“As far as I can tell we’ve got two guards patrolling the rest of the house,” Jordi whispered into Aiden’s ear. “Probably some sort of security system barring the way into the basement, but you can take of that, right babe?”

Aiden nodded and wrapped his arms loosely around Jordi’s waist.

_There can’t be any harm in this. I’m just playing along with Jordi’s rouse after all. We’re just a happy couple._

Aiden couldn’t even convince himself of that fact. It was nice though, to allow himself the delusion, if only for a few moments.

“It should be easy enough to distract the guards too, right?” he murmured.

“Sure,” Jordi replied, and Aiden felt him shrug. “I’m not sure we even need to though. Golobev and his guards are probably way more concerned with protecting his precious moolah. There’s probably a few very expensive little trophies on the top floors of this place. Doubt he’s going to care so much about one measly server.”

“So when do we slip away?” Aiden asked. “Is anybody even watching us right now?”

“Probably not,” Jordi replied, starting to sway gently with Aiden once more. “Public displays of affection tend to make most people at least a little uncomfortable. Ideally what we should do is give people enough time to have another drink or two and then get really cozy in front of them.”

Jordi reached down and grabbed Aiden’s rear for emphasis. Aiden gasped and then glared at the other man. The glare was wasted however, considering Jordi’s face was still mostly buried in Aiden’s neck and shoulder.

Aiden wasn’t sure whether Jordi had just been teasing him or not, at least not until Jordi began mouthing at the skin on Aiden’s neck. Aiden let out a strangled cry and glanced around nervously. He caught one older woman’s eye, but she immediately glanced away, the blush on her face just as red as Aiden thought his own must be.

As comfortable as Jordi had managed to make him where physical intimacy was concerned, Aiden wasn’t sure how he felt being this affectionate with Jordi in front of other people. In fact, he was surprised that Jordi was so willing to let himself get so lost. They were on a job, weren’t they?

But this was _for_ the job. Wasn’t it? Aiden didn’t even know anymore.

Jordi bit down gently, his hands kneading Aiden’s rear. There was nothing for it now. Aiden was glad that they were pressed so closely together, because otherwise there would be absolutely no disguising the erection that was starting to strain against the fabric of the very expensive pants that Jordi had purchased for him.

“Damn it Pearce,” Jordi murmured, pausing his attack on Aiden’s neck to whisper the words right in Aiden’s ear. “You look so fucking sexy tonight. It’s not fair.”

“Jordi…” Aiden murmured. It was supposed to be an objection, but even Aiden could tell that he had made the other man’s name sound more like a plea. “We can’t… You’re going to draw too much attention to us.”

Jordi glanced around for a moment.

“It’s not like we’re the only ones,” he said, gesturing over to the centre of the dance floor, where a few of Golobev’s younger guests had already started to make out with or grind against potential bed partners for the night.

Jordi had a point, and even when he moved to press his lips against Aiden’s own, Aiden couldn’t think of a single reason why he shouldn’t just let the other man kiss him senseless.

They stood there, swaying gently to the music, trading kisses and the occasional caress for what was probably an inappropriately long amount of time. Aiden felt the beat thrumming through him change at least a few times, heard the sounds around him grow louder and more chaotic as the night progressed, but dimly, as though through a fog. He was vaguely aware that there was something important demanding his attention, but he couldn’t really care; not at that moment.

When Jordi eventually pulled back, Aiden let him breathe for only a few minutes, before he chased after the other man’s lips, pulling him back into the kiss.

“Fuck,” he heard Jordi gasp between heated kisses.

Jordi pulled back again, panting heavily this time. Aiden tried to lean in for another kiss, but Jordi’s hands gripped his hips tightly; so tightly that they knocked Aiden out of his haze, if only for a moment.

“We need to cool down for a moment,” Jordi said, resting his forehead against Aiden’s own. “Can’t do the rest of this with our dicks sticking up where everyone can see them, can we?”

It was a terrible thing to say. Aiden should not laugh in response to that. To be fair, what emerged from his throat was more of a snort than actual laughter, but he still felt like that was more than Jordi deserved.

Aiden ground against Jordi, just to feel how hard Jordi was in that moment.

“Holy fuck Pearce,” Jordi hissed, his fingers digging into Aiden’s hips again. “That is _not_ helping, you ass.”

They continued to sway gently to the music, even though the deep, heavy bass that was now thundering through throughout the garden was not particularly conducive to slow dancing.

“Sure. Get cozy, he says,” Aiden drawled as they both moved slowly and tried to think about anything but the heat between them. “People are disturbed by displays of affection, he says.”

“Oh my god, Pearce you brat; shut up,” Jordi said, giving Aiden’s hip another squeeze. It was probably not as helpful as Jordi had intended it to be, not if Jordi had intended for it to calm Aiden down. “I didn’t see you coming up with any plans.”

Aiden glanced around at the rest of the party attendees, and at Golobev’s house. Half of the guests were busy whispering into each other’s ears, shaking hands, and trading information. There had to be at least a dozen dirty deals happening in the shadows of Golobev’s gathering at that moment, and Aiden itched to pull his phone out and maybe listen in on a few of them. The other half of the guests were halfway to oblivion, some of them lost thanks to more than just alcohol. One of Golobev’s guards was trying to break up some sort of fight that had started further down the back of the garden, and at least one younger couple on the dance floor was getting even more intimate than Aiden and Jordi had been, much to the embarrassment of some of the people around them, who had moved aside to give them some space.

“It looks to me like people have had those couple of extra drinks you suggested we should wait for,” Aiden told Jordi. “So any idea how we’re going to sneak into the house?”

He whispered this into Jordi’s ear. Anyone nearby who happened to glance at them would undoubtedly think he was just whispering sweet nothings, or more likely dirty suggestions, into his lover’s ear.

“So the door to the basement is on that side of the house,” Jordi said, nodding in a vague direction. Like Aiden, he was communicating by whispering directly into Aiden’s ear, and he did it with a wide grin on his face. Just more sweet nothings. “I noticed that the room in the corner there is pretty poorly lit, and those trees give us enough cover that no-one should really be able to spot us unless they’re already looking for us, in which case we’ve probably already fucked it up.”

Aiden took a moment to glance over at the room Jordi had indicated. There was a decent sized window facing them, which looked easily large enough to sneak through, and there weren’t any lights on inside.

“Is the window unlocked?” he asked Jordi.

“Only one way to find out,” Jordi said, pulling back and finally lifting his hands off Aiden’s hips.

Aiden’s arousal had not completely faded, but at least it wasn’t so visibly obvious anymore.

It was easy enough to slip away from the rest of the party and duck into the shadows. Very few people wanted to make eye contact with them after their display, let alone actually talk to them. Jordi’s hand, still holding Aiden’s tightly as the fixer dragged him towards the window, probably made everyone think that they were simply sneaking away for a bit of privacy. It wasn’t a terrible cover story, but if Aiden wasn’t so horny and taken in with everything about Jordi in that moment he probably would have been embarrassed.

They ducked behind a small copse of trees and sidled up to the window. Aiden kept glancing behind them, still sure that someone was going to spot them and call them out on their illicit behavior, but no-one cared or wanted to know what two gay forty-something year old men were doing in the shadows.

The house was old. If it had been one of the newer, state-of-the-art smart houses that had started to make their way onto the market then maybe Aiden would have been able to hack the window open. As it was he just stood there and kept watch as Jordi fiddled with the window, trying not to look too conspicuous as he did.

“Damn it,” Jordi cursed. “Just… Just a moment.”

“It’s locked, isn’t it?” Aiden muttered. Of course it was locked. Nothing could ever be easy.

“Guess Golobev doesn’t want his guests…”

“Doing exactly what we’re doing,” Aiden interrupted.

“Yeah. That,” Jordi replied, before cursing beneath his breath. “Damn it. Kind of want to just smash the fucking thing open.”

“We can’t,” Aiden objected. “The music’s loud, but probably not loud enough to cover that much noise.”

“Yeah, I worked that much out for myself,” Jordi snapped, clearly annoyed. “You know what? Maybe if I just…”

He fiddled around with the bottom of the window for a moment before holding a hand out to Aiden.

“Pass me a credit card or something,” he said.

Aiden rolled his eyes and reached into his wallet. He didn’t have a credit card or any sort of bank card at all for that matter. He passed Jordi a membership card for a coffee place he didn’t visit anymore, not trusting him with anything more important.

It was only after Jordi had already taken it with a quick murmur of ‘thanks’ and gotten to work on the window that Aiden thought to wonder why Jordi couldn’t just use a card of his own. 

Aiden heard the window rattling, and then a sharp ‘crack’ as something broke. Aiden hoped that it hadn’t been the card.

“Hey, is someone there?” a voice called out from inside the house.

“Oh shit!” Aiden yelled, grabbing Jordi and pulling them both down below the windowsill.

After a couple of seconds Aiden risked a glance through the window. Light streamed into the room from the hallway beyond, revealing a large but apparently unoccupied bedroom. Aiden would have guessed that it usually served as a guest room of sorts.

One of the security guards flipped on the bedroom’s light switch and walked inside. Aiden ducked back down.

“Security guard?” Jordi whispered across to him.

Aiden nodded ‘yes.’

“Shit,” Jordi cursed.

Aiden hacked into the mansion’s security cameras again, hoping that he might be able to get a good view of the hallway beyond the guest bedroom, so that he might be able to monitor the guard’s movements or at least tell when he had left the room behind them, but he had no such luck. 

Jordi pressed his ear against the wall of the house, although Aiden wasn’t sure how exactly how much he would be able to hear, or what he was waiting for; possibly the sound of the door closing or some other sign that the guard had left. They would have to be careful when entering the mansion regardless. The nearest guard clearly had excellent hearing if he had heard the window latch snap from out in the hall.

Aiden frowned as he turned his attention back to his phone and to the security cameras inside Golobev’s mansion. He tried to work out some sort of plan that wasn’t just sitting there and waiting for the guard to disappear, but he had no idea what they could do.

For once luck was on their side. While Aiden and Jordi were still crouched beneath the window, they heard the security guard’s comm buzz into static-filled life. Aiden couldn’t catch much of the conversation that passed between the guard and his colleague, but it was clear that there was some sort of disturbance.

Aiden switched back to the security cameras, and after a little bit of jumping around between them, he spotted one of the other guards escorting a half-dressed man and woman out of the mansion. The young woman in particular was wielding her high heels like weapons and did not look at all happy to have been disturbed.

“Our friend just left his post,” Jordi told Aiden.

“Now’s our chance,” Aiden said. “He got called away to deal with a young couple doing pretty much exactly what we’ve been pretending we’re planning to do.”

“You sure they aren’t trying to steal something from Golobev too?” 

Aiden rolled his eyes at Jordi’s attempt at a joke.

“Just open the fucking window,” he said.

Jordi got back to work while Aiden kept an eye on the feed from the security cameras. When he jumped back to the action he realized that he recognized one of the couples that he had spotted earlier on the dance floor. The guy seemed to be objecting quite loudly to the guards that were now quite forcibly attempting to remove him and his high-heel-wielding lady friend from the premises.

Aiden heard the window let out a tortured whine as Jordi forced it open. Clearly it hadn’t been opened in quite some time.

“We have an entrance,” Jordi announced.

“The guards should be distracted for at least a little while longer,” Aiden told Jordi. “The couple they interrupted isn’t leaving peacefully.”

“Thank the heavens for young love, right?” Jordi said, waggling his eyebrows rather suggestively at Aiden, before climbing in through the window.

Aiden rolled his eyes at the other man and then started to climb in after him. Jordi offered Aiden his hand. Aiden paused, halfway through the window, and glared down at it. He certainly did not need anyone’s help climbing through a fucking window, least of all Jordi’s.

He did not say as much, but apparently the glare he directed at Jordi’s face got the message across pretty well.

“Hey, I’m just sticking with the cover story we’ve already established,” Jordi said. “We’re just a horny, slightly drunk couple looking for a nice, out of the way broom closet where we can fuck in private, right?”

“The exact same thing that the last couple got in trouble for,” Aiden objected, although he allowed Jordi to keep a hold of his hand as he finished climbing into the room.

“Yeah, but they won’t catch us with our pants literally down and our dicks hanging out,” Jordi said. “So there’s less trauma there. Also, we will be so much more polite about the whole thing than those other jerks, right?”

“Well, we’ll take the guards down a lot quicker,” Aiden conceded.

“Yeah. Nicer.”

Aiden still wasn’t sure that such an excuse would work, but nevertheless allowed Jordi to lead him out of the room and into the rest of the mansion with his hand still entwined tightly with Aiden’s own.

It was only a short distance from the guest bedroom to the door that led to the basement, and Aiden and Jordi passed by mostly unnoticed. They did bump into one caterer on the way, but after a smile and a wink from Jordi and a quick glance down at their entwined hands she simply carried on her way with a knowing grin on her face.

They soon made it to the basement door. Aiden soon discovered it had been fastened with an old-fashioned, non-electronic lock, but luckily it proved much easier for Jordi to pick than the window they had entered through, and before long they found themselves heading downstairs.

There was, as far as Aiden could see, only one slight complication. They had needed to leave the door unlocked and take the padlock with them so that they didn’t get locked in the basement. If anyone passed by the basement door it would be fairly easy to tell that someone had broken in.

Aiden tried to remember the layout of the basement’ security cameras. They would be able to sneak past one of them, but the other had been pointing straight at the server. 

He froze the camera’s feed, which should give them a few minutes, assuming that no-one was really paying any attention to them.

“We’ll have to be quick,” Aiden told Jordi.

“Yeah, yeah,” the fixer whispered in reply as Aiden turned on his phone’s torch and began scanning the basement in an attempt to find the server. 

“It should be around there somewhere,” he said, dragging Jordi through the dark. 

Aiden realized that they were still holding each other’s hand, despite the fact that there was absolutely no reason to do so anymore; no pretense to keep up or watchful eyes to fool. He didn’t let go though, enjoying the simple, harmless intimacy while he could, at least until the two of them reached the server and he was forced to get to work.

“All right,” Aiden said, getting to his knees in front of the tower, which was surprisingly large and a little more sophisticated than he had been expecting after seeing the rest of Golobev’s house.

Jordi stood by Aiden as he worked, glancing around at the basement, keeping watch, or what passed for it.

“Come on Pearce,” Jordi snapped, breaking Aiden’s much-needed concentration for a moment. “I don’t know how much time we’ve got until they realize something’s wrong.”

“Damn it. Give me a second,” Aiden said. “This is more complicated than I was anticipating. I’m running a decryption program right now. Should just be a few more seconds and then… All right. I’m in. It’s going to take a while to download and search through all the data on this thing.”

“What the hell is this?” Jordi asked as he glanced over Aiden’s shoulder.

Aiden was absolutely sure that Jordi wouldn’t know what any of the scrolling text that was currently displaying on his phone screen meant, but that didn’t stop him from sneering at it.

“The hell?” Jordi asked. “Has Golobev got backup data for the entire Russian mob in this place or what?”

Aiden couldn’t say for sure. All that he knew was that Golobev’s operation was looking far more complicated than either he or Jordi would have expected, and consequently the hack was taking too much time.

That became abundantly clear when he heard the sound of footsteps entering the basement.

“Hello?” someone called out. “Is anyone down here?”

Aiden and Jordi looked at one another.

“Shit,” Jordi cursed.

A flashlight appeared at the other end of the basement. Aiden glanced around them but there was nowhere that he and Jordi could easily hide.

“Quick, look horny,” Jordi said.

“I don’t think that excuse is going to…” Aiden didn’t make it any further before Jordi was pushing him up against the nearest wall and kissing him senseless.

Aiden moaned, all objections immediately forgotten as Jordi’s tongue invaded his mouth. Aiden wrapped his arms tightly around Jordi’s shoulders and pulled him closer, one of his legs hooking up over Jordi’s hip and drawing him in. He was almost able to forget that the two of them were in trouble.

“Damn it,” Aiden heard the guard say, the closer than anticipated voice suddenly yanking Aiden out of his pleasant reverie. “Down here? Really?”

Aiden pulled back and, with eyes that couldn’t quite focus, glanced over at the nearby guard, who was sending the two of them a very definite frown.

“And just what the fuck do the two of you think you’re doing down here?” the guard asked.

“Oh come on,” Jordi said, flashing the guard one of his widest grins. “Don’t mind us. We just snuck off for a bit of privacy. I think we might have been making some of the people out there a little uncomfortable.”

Well, their earlier make out session in front of hundreds of Golobev’s guests would certainly lend some veracity to that particular claim. If Aiden looked as flushed and dazed as he felt then that was probably going to help as well.

The guard didn’t look particularly convinced. Probably because they had been caught in an area that was very obviously off-limits. If he looked at the server just behind Aiden and Jordi then he would see Aiden’s phone still connected to it as well; clear evidence that the two of them were guilty of more than just sneaking off in search of some private time.

“We’re in love,” Jordi said, glancing at Aiden and then back at the guard with a wicked grin on his face.

And those three simple words were enough to make Aiden’s brain stop working completely. He knew that it was just part of the façade; that Jordi could never and would never be in love with Aiden, and even if he did then he would never admit it, but hearing him say the word ‘love’ so casually when Aiden was still struggling to even think it was enough to break Aiden’s mind completely.

The security guard rolled his eyes.

“Come on you two,” he said. “That’s enough…”

He then broke off as both his flashlight and his gaze landed on the server, and on Aiden’s phone still connected to it.

“What the fuck?” the guard said.

That was all he managed to get out before Jordi was pouncing on him and manipulating the guard into a stranglehold. As the guard struggled and tried to remove Jordi’s arm, Jordi reached down and grabbed the man’s gun from his hip. He smacked it over the guard’s head, and the guard immediately went limp in Jordi’s arms.

Jordi lowered the guard to the floor, before removing the man’s tie in one swift move and using it to tie the guard’s hands behind his back.

Aiden could only stare at Jordi in wonder. His movements were flawless, and he was done with the guard in only a few seconds.

Meanwhile the words that Jordi had said earlier were still rattling around in Aiden’s head, taunting him mercilessly.

‘We’re in love… We’re in _love…’_

“Hey Pearce,” Jordi said, already back on his feet and standing right in front of Aiden. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Snap out of it.”

Aiden grabbed Jordi and pulled him in for another long, passionate kiss. He heard a loud, desperate moan, and couldn’t bring himself to care that the noise had emerged from his own throat.

The kiss only went on for a few seconds. It was far too short.

“All right Pearce,” Jordi said, pulling back a little. Aiden missed his lips already. “How are we doing?”

“What?” Aiden murmured.

He couldn’t think straight. His heart still felt as though it was missing too many beats in a row thanks to what Jordi had said. He knew that it meant nothing, or even worse than nothing. It was probably nothing more than a joke as far as Jordi was concerned. Ha ha ha, oh, wasn’t the thought of the two of them actually falling in love with one another absolutely hilarious?

“The download,” Jordi prompted.

“Oh,” Aiden muttered. “Right.”

He swallowed deeply. That’s right. That’s why they were there. The data.

He pulled his phone up and examined the display.

“Seventy-eight per cent,” he confirmed. “Shouldn’t be too much longer.”

“Seventy-eight per cent,” Jordi repeated. “Damn it.”

The other man’s words echoed in his mind, ‘we’re in love… we’re in love…’, a constant taunting that he couldn’t seem to shut off, no matter how hard he tried. One of them was in love, and it wasn’t Jordi.

Aiden knew that he was in too deep, that he was far more reliant on Jordi’s kisses and touches than was healthy or safe. God, this was all such a disaster. He was such an idiot. There was no way that this relationship wasn’t going to blow up in his face. His relationship with Damien had been so much less volatile and passionate than this, and that had almost resulted in the destruction of an entire city. Aiden wasn’t sure whether it would be possible for him to get out of his relationship with Jordi alive.

“Pearce? Hey. Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

Aiden couldn’t bring himself to meet Jordi’s eyes.

Jordi took a step back and stared at Aiden for what felt like the longest time. He didn’t have the usual, shit-eating grin that he adopted when talking to Aiden, and Aiden felt like he should probably feel grateful for that, but he didn’t. He wasn’t used to seeing this serious, thoughtful side of Jordi. The couple of other times that Aiden remembered seeing it had always preluded disaster.

“Holy shit,” Jordi said, giving Aiden a suspicious look that did not promise anything good. “Holy fucking shit, Aiden-fucking-Pearce you fucking impossible…”

Aiden couldn’t quite work out whether the other man was angry at him or found something about the whole situation amusing. He was chuckling, but it was a sound without humor; a sound that triggered something inside Aiden and told him to run; a sound that Aiden had heard several times right before a bullet had entered someone else’s brain thanks to Jordi’s keen skills as a sniper.

“You’re actually in love with me, aren’t you?” Jordi accused him. There was no other word for it. The words were an accusation, if Aiden had ever heard one. They had every right to be as well.

“I told you not to fucking fall in love with me, didn’t I?” Jordi continued. “And despite that you… Aiden-fucking-Pearce, walking emotional disaster, despite everything that you are and everything we both said…”

Jordi was completely lost in laughter now; close to hysterics in fact.

“You fucking fell in love with me!” Jordi said, roaring with laughter as though it was the best joke he had heard in years. “What the fuck!?”

Aiden just stood there, feeling as though his heart was being pulled further and further out of his chest with every second of Jordi’s laughter. Aiden had already known that he was being stupid. Jordi didn’t need to rub it in so much.

Luckily it was at that moment that Aiden’s phone vibrated. When Aiden checked the screen he discovered that the download had finished.

“The download is complete,” he said, trying to ignore the fact that Jordi was still laughing. “I’ll transfer all the files over to you. I’m sure you can sort through them to find whatever it is you need.”

He pushed past Jordi. The fixer tried to grab Aiden’s sleeve as he passed, but Aiden shrugged off the other man’s touch, glaring back at him as he did.

“Hey Pearce,” Jordi said, the laughter starting to fade from his voice. “Look, it’s not…”

Aiden wasn’t willing to listen to him. He knew what the other man was undoubtedly going to say. ‘It’s not a good idea. You know that right?’ Or maybe even ‘Look, it’s not that big a deal. Get back here so we can make out some more and we’ll both just pretend that this is just sex.’

He didn’t know which would be worse. Either way, he couldn’t take it anymore; couldn’t take what would happen now that Jordi knew how much sway he held over Aiden.

Aiden stormed up the basement stairs, pushed open the door and stormed through Golobev’s mansion, heading straight for the exit. He ignored Jordi’s attempts to call out after him, which disappeared as soon as he left the basement. Clearly the fixer had no intent of running after him.

He couldn’t ignore the calls of one of the security guards that had been patrolling Golobev’s mansion however. The larger man grabbed hold of Aiden’s arm as he attempted to pass.

“Hey, where are you…?”

“I’m leaving,” he snapped at the much larger man, wrenching his arm out the guard’s hold as he did. “All right?”

He wasn’t all right. Nothing about this was all right.

The security guard didn’t challenge him further, and so Aiden Pearce walked out of Golobev’s mansion, leaving Jordi Chin behind in the basement.


	4. The Red Eye

Aiden had known that the penthouse apartment would be one of the first places that Jordi looked for him, so he avoided it like the plague. He needed to get changed out of the stupid suit that Jordi had bought for him and back into something he actually felt comfortable wearing though, so he retreated to his nearest safe house, where a quick shower and change of clothes had him feeling more like his usual self.

Afterwards Aiden stared at the suit, where it lay perfectly laid out on what passed for the safe-house’s bed and knew that he would feel guilty if he just abandoned it. In the end he arranged for a courier to deliver it to the penthouse, where Jordi could reclaim it. He did not include any sort of message.

He gave up the weapons that he had left at the penthouse as a lost cause. He could buy new ones pretty easily. It wasn’t as though he was short on cash at the moment.

And all the while his heart continued the frantic, uneven gallop that had started as soon as Jordi had accused Aiden of being in love with him.

* * *

‘Hey asshole,’ the first text message read. ‘Where the hell are you?’

It appeared on Aiden’s phone early (at least by his and Jordi’s standards) in the morning after Golobev’s party. Aiden ignored it.

‘Pearce?’ the next message read. ‘Come on. We need to talk.’

No, they didn’t. Whatever Jordi had to say, Aiden didn’t want to hear it.

Aiden grabbed a few essentials and then caught the first long-distance bus out of Chicago that he could find. He didn’t know where he was going. He just knew that he needed to get away from Chicago, and away from Jordi Chin.

Jordi tried to call him a few times but Aiden always declined the call as soon as he saw Jordi’s number. There were more text messages, but Aiden ignored those as well.

Aiden wasn’t nearly as infamous or easily recognized outside of Chicago, and so he quickly discovered that with his particular skillset it was easy enough for him to find work in certain less than legal circles, although none of it really meant anything to him, except as a way to keep his mind occupied and his bank balance healthy.

In Oklahoma he started to hear more whisperings of the human trafficking ring that Lucky Quinn had been involved with, and began to follow that trail like a hound. His journey took him far across the country as slowly, one target at a time, he dealt with nearly everyone Quinn had ever done business with.

He told himself that it was his investigation that drove him, but the further he travelled the more obvious it became that he was just trying to get as far away from Chicago as he possibly could without leaving the United States.

There were too many bad memories in Chicago, and no ties to keep him there. What family he used to have had left long ago, and the only friends he might have been able to claim anymore were those who he had teamed up with against Blume, and their relationship had been based on convenience and a mutual hatred of the same people rather than any sort of good will or familiarity.

And so Aiden carried on, pursuing vengeance for a hundred nameless victims, trying not to think about the fact that he was becoming more and more isolated from the rest of the world with every week that passed. Occasionally he would cross paths with other hackers or slightly less distasteful criminal organizations, but any alliance was temporary.

Sometimes he would catch himself thinking about Jordi, but he always banished such thoughts to the back of his mind as quickly as he possibly could, with a bottle of whiskey if need be. Sometimes he contemplated going out and finding some other guy to have sex with in an attempt to erase the memory of Jordi’s body from his own, but even simple hook-ups seemed like too much work for too little reward.

When Aiden reached San Francisco he realized that there was nowhere left to go; not only because he had reached the western coast, but because it was there, in San Francisco, that the trail stopped.

His investigation had lead him to a collusion between two of San Francisco’s biggest criminal gangs. The Aunty Shu boys learned their lesson quickly enough and backed off once he had made sure several of their high-ranking members either met with death or were behind bars, which just left the local arm of the Bratva.

Aiden wasn’t sure what he was going to do once he was done with the Russian mob. He could probably find a new target to go after. After all, there was always someone willing to profit from other people’s misery. The potential lack of direction in his life however was terrifying. He didn’t do well without some sort of target to work towards.

The Bratva however proved to be more of a problem than Aiden had anticipated. They were well-organized and well-connected, with more members and ties to local law enforcement than Aiden could realistically deal with on his own.

They even managed to grab him. Aiden knew that he might have been in trouble too if it wasn’t for one of the local bleeding-heart hacktivists interfering at just the right time. A little bit of digging after the fact revealed his savior to be a member of the San Francisco cell of Dedsec. Aiden had contemplated reaching out to them once or twice, but in the end he always decided against it.

He worked better alone. Friendship. Attachment. Relationships. They never ended well. If his time in Chicago had taught him anything then it was that.

But he was growing so damned lonely. The cars and shipping containers and shitty encampments that he stayed in seemed to grow colder and emptier with every passing night. San Francisco was warmer than Chicago, but Aiden didn’t feel it.

A couple of times he even found himself staring at Jordi’s number on his cell phone, if only because there was no-one else that he could think of that he actually wanted to talk to. The thought of just hearing the other man’s voice again was so tempting that he almost gave in a couple of times, especially when the whiskey had been flowing.

At least Aiden had the Bratva to occupy him. They at least did not seem as though they would be disappearing any time soon.

* * *

Aiden wasn’t sure whether the building on the other side of the wall he was lurking behind qualified as a mansion or not. It probably did. It was certainly large enough.

The house in question belonged to one Ruben Abramov, one of the most high-ranking members of the San Francisco Bratva. Whatever else you could accuse the Bratva of, being frugal when it came to their more valued members was not one of them.

Aiden had learned a fair bit about Abramov’s dealings over the last few weeks, and had learned that whatever the Bratva were up to, there was much more going on in San Francisco than just human trafficking.

He had heard reference to a ‘Project Streamer’ although Aiden could still only guess what the aim of said project was. What he did know was that it involved a shit load of money and at least one of San Francisco’s biggest hospitals, and that Abramov was somehow connected to all of it.

Aiden’s current plan involved breaking into Abramov’s house and hacking into the man’s private computer. If that couldn’t give Aiden the answers that he was after, then Abramov himself would.

Security around Abramov’s house seemed fairly tight. Whatever was happening inside Abramov’s residence, the Bratva wanted to make sure that it stayed a secret.

Well, it wasn’t going to; not if Aiden had anything to do with it.

A quick hack got him into one of the house’s security cameras. The first couple didn’t give Aiden a very good look inside the house itself, but he did spot at least four heavily armed thugs patrolling the perimeter; two at the back of the house and two at the front. With any luck there wouldn’t be more inside, but he really couldn’t be sure.

He also spotted a couple of motion detectors inside the house. The sensors would only go off if an unauthorized person went through, and they used facial recognition rather than anything as easy to exploit as a key card. Aiden was pretty sure he would be able to switch them off if he got close enough, but they were still a problem.

He jumped to the camera upstairs, scouting the place out as much as possible before he entered. He had just caught sight of Abramov’s private computer; in a room next to his bedroom that probably served as some sort of office, when his access to the house’s security cameras was abruptly cut short and he was booted out of the system.

Aiden stared down at the phone in his hand, more than a little annoyed and extremely surprised. He had been reasonably careful and hadn’t even really begun to cause the Abramov household any trouble yet. No-one should have noticed his intrusion into the system, much less been able to kick him out.

If hacking wasn’t a reliable option then Aiden was going to have to try a much more ‘hands on’ approach when infiltrating the house. It was not his first choice. It wasn’t that he was particularly opposed to violence, especially not where Bratva-hired thugs were concerned. In fact, it usually helped him let off steam. He was tired though. He hadn’t been sleeping well of late, and wasn’t sure he would be able to do much in the way of fighting before he inevitably slipped up.

He wanted to blame his restlessly on the humid Californian weather, or the fact that California just didn’t sound or smell or even feel the same as Chicago. There were so many other reasons for his restlessness that he didn’t want to acknowledge though. He was floundering, directionless and alone and for the first time in a very long time, actually feeling that loneliness.

He put all such thoughts aside though, checked his pistol, and climbed over the wall and into the grounds of Abramov’s mansion.

After the incident with the security camera, Aiden half-expected the guards to already be alerted to the potential presence of an intruder. They went down easy though; one distracted by a message Aiden sent to his phone, and the other one taken unaware while he was investigating the fallen body of his companion. One of them would recover after a few nights in hospital. Aiden wasn’t so sure about the second.

It was fairly easy to find the control panel for the security system, and, using a passcode lifted from one of the now unconscious guard’s phones, Aiden was able to turn it off for a few seconds and sneak inside.

Aiden knew that he would have to be as quick and silent as possible. After all, there were still the two guards outside, and if either of them heard Aiden or discovered that their friends at the back of the house had been attacked, then things would undoubtedly become a lot more complicated for Aiden. Not to mention he hadn’t gotten a good look upstairs and had no idea whether there might be more people hiding somewhere in the house.

The upper floor was far more lavish than the lower one had been. The kitchen and lounge that Aiden had passed through had all been spartan, clean and mostly unlived in from the looks of things, whereas the upper floor was all dark mahogany, soft, thick carpet that dampened Aiden’s footsteps and deep, wine-red curtains. The overall look was one of showy, almost indecent decadence, the sort of look you might expect from a Victorian lord’s manor, or, at the other end of the spectrum, a very high-class brothel.

Aiden was just glancing around the hallway, trying to guess which door the computer was hidden behind, when one of the doors opened and a tall, portly, middle-aged man with wide shoulders and long, greying hair stumbled out. After a moment Aiden realized he was looking at Ruben Abramov himself. The Bratva leader was wearing a rich bathrobe over the top of a full set of pajamas, despite the fact that it was only late afternoon, and he looked a lot scruffier and drunker than he did in any of his online photographs.

Aiden quickly made a dash for the nearest hiding place, a pair of long, thick curtains that were currently stopping daylight from streaming into the house through a full length window that would have usually given Abramov an excellent view of his backyard, and of San Francisco bay beyond. Aiden hid behind the curtains, peeking out from between them when he dared and hoping that Abramov would not suddenly be gripped by the desire to feel the sun on his face or gaze out over the bay.

“What do you mean someone tripped the alarm!?” Abramov yelled into his phone as Aiden hid nearby. “If the alarm went off then I would have heard it!”

Aiden thought once more of the house’s facial recognition technology, but no, that couldn’t be what Abramov was talking about. Aiden was completely sure that he had disabled it. Unless someone had managed to interfere with the security system and switch it back on immediately without Aiden realizing it there was no way that the facial recognition system would have registered him. Noticing Aiden’s intrusion and switching the system back on remotely would have taken some serious skill, but considering someone had already managed to boot Aiden out of Abramov’s system, Aiden had to consider the possibility a lot more seriously than he would have liked.

He tapped into Abramov’s phone call, knowing that whatever was going on, he needed to hear it.

Abramov let out a string of Russian, and even though Aiden couldn’t understand a word of it, he knew by the other man’s tone that at least some of it had been cursing.

“Maybe…” Abramov muttered, pacing backwards and forwards down the hallway and gesturing fruitlessly with his hands. “You said that CTOS could not produce an ID, right? Perhaps this is just a malfunction. One of the guards pulled a strange face or something and the cameras could no longer ID him.”

“I don’t think so,” a younger-sounding voice on the other end of the line said. “I caught someone rooting around in some of your other systems earlier. You need to be careful. You might have an intruder.”

“Who would be stupid enough to come after me?” Abramov continued. “I would think it would be easier and more rewarding to…”

“Wait a moment,” the man on the other end of the line said.

When the younger man began speaking again he switched to Russian, and Aiden couldn’t understand a word that either he or Abramov said, although he could guess what had happened when a few seconds later the call was abruptly ended. 

The Bratva hacker had noticed that Aiden was eavesdropping. This guy was really starting to be a thorn in Aiden’s side.

Abramov began glancing around himself now that he was alerted to Aiden’s presence. Surely it would only be a matter of time before he found Aiden’s hiding place, or alerted the remaining guards, and then they would all be looking for Aiden.

Aiden waited until Abramov’s back was turned and then jumped out from his hiding place, launching himself at the other man. His plan had been to take Abramov captive, but the larger man managed to slip Aiden’s hold almost immediately. His big, meaty arms flailed around and one of his fists connected with Aiden’s face before he could plan another attack.

There was no time for talking or for subtlety. There were still two guards outside and Aiden needed to take Abramov down before the Bratva boss could scream for help. As Abramov turned around to attack Aiden once more Aiden grabbed his pistol and shot Abramov right between the eyes.

The other man fell to the ground with a loud ‘thud’. Aiden just hoped that neither the sound of Abramov’s body falling nor the shot from his silenced pistol had been loud enough to attract attention. Things were going poorly enough as it was without adding a pair of undoubtedly heavily armed guards to the mix.

Abramov’s blood had splattered all over the hallway, and his body was lying right where anyone would be able to see it as soon as they came upstairs. If Abramov hadn’t been such a large man then Aiden would have dragged him to a more appropriate hiding place. As it was he would have to leave him there and hope that nobody ventured upstairs until Aiden had already left.

Aiden soon located Abramov’s study and quickly hacked into his personal computer. It only took him a couple of seconds of rummaging around to locate a folder conveniently marked ‘Project Streamer.’ It had a few more layers of security than most of the files on Abramov’s computer, but Aiden had been expecting that. He had only just set up his phone to run a decryption algorithm when he heard a cry of alarm coming from outside. Someone had already discovered the body of Ruben Abramov.

Aiden cursed beneath his breath. Nothing about this was going right.

He left his phone on the desk by the computer to finish decoding the Project Streamer files on its own; not a risk that he would usually take, but a mission that had gone as horribly wrong as this one usually involved some compromises.

Aiden hid by the door, pistol in hand, waiting for the two guards to approach him. One of them was stupid enough to burst into the room Aiden was in, and received a blow from Aiden’s baton to the back of his head. The other guard spotted his companion go down, and fired a couple of shots at Aiden, both of which were too slow to hit before Aiden had already ducked back behind cover.

Aiden ducked back out of cover as his opponent reloaded, and one perfectly aimed shot saw the guard fall to the ground with a bullet between his eyes.

Aiden breathed a sigh of relief as the last guard landed on the floor next to his equally deceased employer. Sure, everyone was either horribly injured or dead, but no-one had seen his face, and as far as Aiden knew, there wouldn’t be anyone else interrupting him. He could finish the hack in peace, copy every piece of information about Project Streamer that he could find on Abramov’s computer, and leave this forsaken place behind him.

When Aiden returned to his phone he discovered that in the time it had taken for him to deal with the remaining guards, the phone’s connection to the computer had been severed.

“No, no, no…” he muttered as he jumped back onto Abramov’s PC.

There was no sign of the Project Streamer folder.

“Damn it!” Aiden cursed, punching the desk in frustration. The whole mission had been for nothing. Every single trace of Project Streamer had been wiped from the system. There was nothing left.

It was at that moment that he heard someone cry out from a nearby room. He drew his pistol on reflex and advanced in the direction of the muffled cry. He was fairly certain that he had heard a woman’s voice, and that she was probably scared rather than angry, but it always paid to be prepared.

The cry had come from Abramov’s bedroom. Aiden advanced cautiously, his pistol at the ready. There was no sign of anyone in the bedroom itself; not on the lavish, oversized bed or in the chair by the window.

“Hello?” Aiden called out.

He heard a thump against one of the walls, and another muffled cry.

“I’m in here!” a woman called out.

The wall behind the bed was covered in a dark, complex pattern of dark wood. When Aiden investigated it further he discovered that a door had been hidden in the pattern. No amount of hacking or technology would allow him to open that door however. Instead he found a whirl of wood that was styled to look like a branch and which gave way when he pulled on it.

The door receded several inches into the wall, and Aiden discovered that he could now slide it open. Walking through the door he found himself in a small hidden chamber, barely wide enough for the cot that took up almost half of the room.

A young woman cowered on the cot, and looked up at Aiden as he entered. He couldn’t see much else in there, except for a small lamp which served as the room’s only light source, and which bathed it in a rich red color and made it impossible to tell whether the satin and lace negligee, which was the only clothing the woman was wearing, was red, pink or white.

The young woman didn’t look as though she had been starved or beaten, but there were dark circles beneath her eyes; too dark for someone so young, and it was very clear that she had been crying. Aiden let his pistol fall to his side.

“You’re not going to hurt me, are you?” the woman asked. “You’re actually here to save me?”

“Sure,” Aiden replied. “I guess I am.”

Perhaps this mission hadn’t been completely fruitless after all.

“Come on,” he said, stashing his pistol in its holster and gesturing to the now open door. “Let’s get you out of here.”

The woman stumbled out of the hidden room and into Abramov’s bedroom, and as she did Aiden noted that the negligee had actually been a pale beige. Her skin was slightly darker than he had initially anticipated as well. If Aiden had to guess then he would have probably said Abramov’s captive was of Hispanic descent.

She didn’t make it any further than the bed before she was sitting down, her fingers digging tightly into the thick, soft blanket on the bed.

“Come on,” Aiden prompted her. “You shouldn’t stop here. You need to leave.”

After all, Abramov and his guards might be dead or unconscious, but the rest of the Bratva were sure to send someone to investigate matters eventually, and Aiden was all too aware of what they might do with a vulnerable young woman.

Not that it wasn’t clear that she had been through far more than she should have already. Aiden wasn’t naive enough to think that he had just happened to show up before Abramov had done anything to her. Who knew how long she had actually been stuck with the old Bratva leader?

“I can’t,” the young woman murmured. “I can’t do it.”

“You can,” Aiden said. “You’re free.”

He didn’t know what he was doing; not when it came to comforting people, but he placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder, hoping that it would help, and that the touch of another man after what Abramov had done to her wouldn’t completely freak her out.

“There are men with guns waiting for me,” she sobbed. “If I try to escape they’ll shoot me.”

“No they won’t,” Aiden said.

“They will,” she said before Aiden could explain any further, rolling up the thin fabric of her negligee to reveal a fist-size scar on her thigh. “See, I tried it once before. After that Ruben took to locking me in that room whenever he wasn’t around.”

“They won’t try to stop you,” Aiden interrupted, “because I already took care of them.”

“They’re… they’re dead?”

Aiden placed one hand on each of the girl’s shoulders, wondering as he did whether he was actually managing to comfort her, or whether he was making as much of a mess of this as he had the actual hacking job.

“Yes,” he said, knowing that it was only a small lie. One of the men in the back yard had survived, but he certainly wouldn’t be waking up any time soon. “So is Abramov. He won’t bother you any longer.”

In truth Aiden had been hoping that as well as comforting the woman he might be able to get some information about Abramov’s operation out of her. It might go some way to making up for the data he had lost thanks to the Bratva’s hacker. 

She burst into tears at that moment though, sobbing and whimpering so loudly that Aiden was suddenly extremely glad that he had already taken care of every single one of Abramov’s guards, because the girl’s crying might have been enough to bring them all running.

“Hey,” he muttered quietly. He didn’t know what he was doing; had always been completely clueless when it came to comforting people; and couldn’t help but feel awkward as he gently patted the girl’s shoulder.

“It’s going to be all right,” Aiden said, not sure that he himself actually believed it. The girl might be free now, but there was no telling what she had already suffered. She would be lucky if she wasn’t scarred for life.

She fell against Aiden, crying into his jacket, and he fumbled as he tried to work out where he was supposed to put his hands. Should he hug her? That wouldn’t be weird, right?

He did not hug her, and soon enough her tears dried up on their own.

“Hey listen,” he prompted once her sobbing began to die down. “I won’t be able to stay here with you for much longer. Before I go, do you think there’s anything that you can tell me about the Bratva and what was going on here?”

“I know a lot about Ruben… Um…” the girl muttered, pulling back from Aiden and rubbing her face. “Abramov, I mean. I heard a lot of things, but I don’t know how much of it would be useful.”

“Do you know anything about a Project Streamer?” Aiden tried.

The girl shook her head slowly and Aiden tried not to let his disappointment show.

“Well, have there been any changes to how things are run of late? Have you seen anyone new around the house?”

The girl shook her head again and Aiden’s spirits sank. He was beginning to fear that perhaps this girl wouldn’t be able to tell him anything about Abramov and the Bratva that he didn’t already know.

“Wait,” the girl said then, a serious, thoughtful look appearing on her face for a moment before she looked up at Aiden once more. “There was something. I don’t know how useful it would be.”

“Tell me,” Aiden prompted.

“Ruben started working with someone new,” the girl replied. “I only met him once or twice, but I remember him because he was younger than most of the men Ruben works with. He kept making eyes at me too so Ruben yelled at him. His name was… Oh god… What was it? Anton. That’s right. Anton… Anton Bagdonov, I think. Something like that.”

“Anything else?” Aiden asked her.

“I think he must be someone important to the Bratva. Ruben didn’t kill him even though he clearly wanted to, and Ruben arranged for him to get diplomatic immunity. I don’t know what he does, but it’s something to do with computers.”

Aiden thought of the asshole that had blocked him out of Abramov’s systems several times already. 

“Do you think he might be a hacker?” Aiden asked.

“Maybe?” the girl replied. “I don’t know…”

It was at that moment that Aiden felt his phone vibrate. When he checked the screen he discovered that he had an alert. The police were on their way and would be at Abramov’s house soon.

“Shit,” Aiden cursed, putting the phone away.

The woman in front of him had started to sniffle again, and Aiden wished, not for the first time that day, that he was better at dealing with these things than he actually was.

“Is there anything else you can tell me?” Aiden said. “Anything about what Abramov was doing, or about this Anton guy?”

The woman barely responded except to let out another sniffle, and Aiden suspected that he had fucked up and pressed too hard. He really was bad at these things.

“Damn it,” he muttered again. The police would be there soon. He didn’t have the time that he needed to comfort this woman enough that she might open up more.

“Sorry,” he said as he slipped his phone into his pocket, “but I have to leave now. The police will take care of you.”

“Thank you,” the woman said, sniffling a little as she did. “What’s your name?”

“Sorry,” Aiden replied, “but I can’t tell you that.”

“Oh, all right,” the woman muttered. “I suppose I understand. Well, regardless, you saved my life, so I think it’s only right that you hear mine, so that you know who you saved. My name is Ramona Vasquez.”

Aiden had been about to leave, but at the sound of that name he found himself freezing in place.

“Wait,” he said, a fragment of memory rising to the top of his brain. “Could you say your name again?”

* * *

“Jordi, I found Ramona Vasquez!”

Aiden had only just left Abramov’s house behind when he made the call. To his surprise Jordi picked up almost immediately. Aiden hadn’t even been sure that the fixer would still have the same phone number.

“Pearce?” Jordi answered. “What the fuck are you talking about!?”

“Ramona Vasquez!” Aiden repeated.

“Who the fuck is Ramona Vasquez?”

“The daughter of the guy, remember?” Aiden tried. “You know, your client. His daughter had been taken. The house. With the baseball cards?”

“Ohhhh…” Jordi replied after some time, drawing the sound out for several long and painful seconds.

“She was bought by a member of the Bratva,” Aiden continued. “Ruben Abramov.”

“Right. Why the fuck do I care about this Pearce? For that matter, why the fuck do you care about it?”

Aiden realized immediately that Jordi had a point. It was probably the smallest, stupidest excuse to get in contact with Jordi that he could have come up with, but apparently an excuse, even one as flimsy as this, was all that he had needed to contact Jordi without so much as a second thought. Now that he was aware of that fact the entire conversation seemed so much more awkward.

“Wait a second Pearce,” Jordi said, beginning to sound a little annoyed. “Don’t fucking tell me that’s where you’ve been this whole time; chasing down some random girl that you don’t even fucking know?”

“No, I…” Aiden began, but he broke off pretty quickly. There was no way in hell that he was going to admit that Jordi was the only reason he had left Chicago.

The phone conversation turned silent for a while, and then Aiden heard Jordi let out a long and very tired-sounding sigh.

“Why did you call me Pearce?” Jordi asked. “Do you need some help with the Russian mafia? Is that it?”

“I… I don’t know,” Aiden replied.

It wasn’t that he didn’t know whether or not he needed help with the Russian mafia, but he definitely didn’t know why he had called Jordi.

“Where are you?” Jordi asked.

“San Francisco,” Aiden replied, and immediately wondered whether he was going to regret it. Why was he telling Jordi where he was? Jordi could find him then. Hadn’t the point been to disappear and get as far away from Jordi as possible?

For a moment Jordi was silent on the other end of the line. Aiden heard a few taps and another loud sigh, and then Jordi was back again.

“All right,” Jordi said. “If I get on the red eye I can be there first thing in the morning.”

“Wait… no,” Aiden said. “You don’t need to…”

“Do you want help with the Bratva or not?”

Aiden didn’t know how to answer. He was pretty sure he didn’t actually need any help with the Bratva. Taking them down had just been busy work after all.

He missed Jordi though. God how he missed him. He found himself sighing loudly into the phone and rubbing his now aching head.

“My thumb is hovering over the payment confirmation button for a one-way ticket to San Francisco Pearce. If you don’t want me flying over there then you’d better tell me now, otherwise you’ll be seeing me soon.”

Aiden tried to summon the will to tell Jordi that his travelling to San Francisco wouldn’t be necessary. It seemed so stupid, and like such a waste of time and money. Jordi didn’t need to be there.

He didn’t manage to say anything to that effect however before Jordi was speaking once more.

“Well, that’s done,” Jordi said. “I’ll be there in the morning. Where and when do you want to meet?”

“I’m uh… I’m staying just outside of Sausalito right now…”

“Where the fuck is Sausalito?” Jordi asked. “You know what; never mind. We’ll book a hotel or something when I get there. I’ll call you okay? See you soon.”

And with that Jordi hung up.

Aiden stood there and stared at his phone for what was probably a stupidly long period of time.

It had been surprisingly easy to get Jordi to fly halfway across the country for him. In fact Aiden hadn’t even asked him to. Jordi had practically volunteered. 

What was he going to do when Jordi arrived in San Francisco and realized that Aiden didn’t need his help after all? The only reason Aiden had called Jordi in the first place was because he was a pathetic fool who hadn’t managed to move on from Jordi and what they’d had back in Chicago nearly as well as he’d thought he had.

What the hell was he doing?

* * *

Less than fifteen hours later Aiden found himself standing next to Jordi in front of the door to a particularly shitty hotel room. Jordi had booked the place, and it wasn’t nearly as nice as Aiden had expected, with peeling wallpaper and air-conditioning that was spotty at best, but still a lot nicer than many of the places Aiden had been sleeping of late. 

So far Aiden had been nothing if not polite and professional to Jordi. The fixer meanwhile had spent the entire time complaining; about the red-eye, about the humidity in San Francisco and about some old man he had been seated next to on the plane who had spent the entire flight snoring.

“It made sleeping impossible,” Jordi said as he unlocked the hotel room door. “Absolutely fucking impossible. Do you want to get coffee Pearce? I need coffee to wash out the taste of the mud they had the nerve to serve me on the plane. I mean, they _claimed_ that it was coffee, but I really wasn’t convinced, you know?”

Jordi deposited the single briefcase that he had brought with him inside his hotel room, and then proceeded to relock the door.

Aiden had barely been able to keep his eyes off Jordi, and not for the reasons he had been anticipating. The fixer did not look well. There were deeper circles around Jordi’s eyes than Aiden remembered, although those could probably be explained by the sleepless red eye flight that Jordi had decided that he needed to catch. His suit was different too; plain black on black, undoubtedly expensive and very professional but ultimately boring and not at all what Aiden was used to seeing Jordi wear.

They were both relatively quiet as they made their way out of the hotel and then down the street to grab coffee from the first place that they saw. Aiden’s was mediocre at best, although he suspected that his unease at Jordi’s sudden reappearance in his life might have affected his enjoyment of it. Jordi didn’t complain about his, so it had to have been better than the airline coffee at any rate.

“So why don’t you tell me about this little Bratva problem you’ve been having?” Jordi asked they slowly walked down the street together.

Jordi wasn’t acting as though anything that had happened over the last day or so was strange. If it wasn’t for the bright Californian sunshine Aiden might have even thought that time had rewound and the two of them were still back in Chicago.

Aiden groaned and downed the last of his coffee in one go.

“There is no problem,” he admitted. “Nothing that you need to worry about anyway.”

“Then what the fuck am I doing here?” Jordi asked.

“That’s a good question,” Aiden replied. “I never said that I had a job for you Jordi. Just that I was having Bratva problems. Are you that desperate for work?”

“Fuck off Pearce,” Jordi snapped as he pitched his now empty cup into the nearest trashcan with a lot more force than necessary.

_We’re talking in circles_ , Aiden realized.  _Jordi knows damn well he’s not here for a job. So what was it that made him decide to catch the red eye from Chicago at such short notice? There’s only one answer that makes sense, and I don’t think either of us are willing to acknowledge it. One of us is bound to bring up that night at Golobev’s mansion soon. I wonder which one of us will crack first._

“You just…” Jordi began slowly, gritting his teeth as he did, “… disappeared!”

Jordi’s hands formed into fists by his sides. 

_Of course it’s Jordi,_  Aiden thought.

“There was no word,” Jordi continued. “No-one knew where you were. You just fucking left Golobev’s party and were never seen or heard from again. I figured, you know, give Pearce a few days to cool down and get his knickers untangled from whatever twist he’s gotten them in, and then he’ll show up again, or at least answer my fucking phone calls, but no; not a single word. Not even a goodbye; just a fucking suit showing up at our penthouse suite with no return address. That suit was bespoke you ass! What the hell did you expect me to do with it?”

Aiden scoffed.

“You’re acting like you were actually worried about me,” Aiden joked. 

Apparently Jordi didn’t find anything about the situation funny. He grabbed Aiden and slammed him up against the nearest patch of wall, his fingers digging tightly into Aiden’s upper arms. 

“God, you can be such a fucking dick sometimes!“ Jordi yelled. “Of course I was fucking worried about you, you arrogant, self-absorbed asshole!”

Jordi backed away from Aiden and threw his hands up in the air. Aiden stayed where he was, the cold brick wall at his back. As he glanced around them he couldn’t help but notice that they were attracting more attention than he would have liked. ‘Aiden Pearce’ might not have been as well known a name as it had been back in Chicago, but he was still trying to keep a low profile.

“Maybe we should continue this back in the hotel,” Aiden suggested, wanting to get away from too many prying eyes.

“You’re damn right we should continue this in the hotel!” Jordi yelled back at him. “You just…”

Jordi flailed for a bit then, his hands turning into fists and then pulling back again.

“I just…” Jordi tried again, and didn’t seem to get any further.

Then he leaned back in towards Aiden. Aiden, who was already getting ready to defend himself, afraid that Jordi was actually angry enough with him that he might turn violent, and was therefore extremely surprised when Jordi kissed him.

Jordi’s lips lingered on Aiden’s for quite a while. He didn’t deepen the kiss, just kept it slow and simple. Eventually Aiden’s surprise at the kiss died down, and he closed his eyes and let himself relax into the kiss just in time for Jordi to bring it to an end.

The fixer pulled back from Aiden, stared at him for all of a moment and then quickly turned away as though suddenly embarrassed or disgusted.

“You’re such a dick,” Jordi snapped.

Aiden wondered if he had done anything in particular to earn that comment, or whether Jordi was still just angry over Aiden’s disappearance.

_As though he has any right to be pissed,_  Aiden thought to himself.  _Maybe if he hadn’t mocked me for falling in love with him then I wouldn’t have felt the need to disappear._

He folded his arms in front of his chest and glared at Jordi, but by that stage the fixer had already turned away from Aiden.

Aiden sighed and wished that things could be easier between the two of them. He couldn’t help but feel like there was something that he was missing. Jordi was even more of an enigma to Aiden right then than he usually was, but Aiden was sure that if he could just work out the thing that he was missing then surely all the pieces would come together and the other man’s behavior would all suddenly make sense.

“Come on,” Jordi said, grabbing Aiden’s wrist without even looking back at him. “Let’s go back to the hotel and ‘talk’.”

Aiden shook his hand free of Jordi’s grip and followed him back to the filthy hotel room Jordi had hired. Neither of them said a word; not when they climbed the stairs to Jordi’s room, not when Jordi turned the key in the aging and quite frankly less than secure lock, and not when they first stepped into the room itself.

Instead they both just stood there, staring at the ground or the wall or whatever happened to be in front of their eyes; anywhere but at each other. To Aiden it seemed appropriate. Whatever else their relationship was it had never involved good communication.

This thing, whatever it was; this painful, annoying, embarrassing weakness, had taken them across the country, to a shitty little hotel in the middle of San Francisco, and it felt like they still hadn’t worked out anything at all.

“What the fuck am I doing here?” Jordi eventually asked once more.

“You tell me,” Aiden replied. “I still haven’t made sense of that one myself.”

Jordi let out a tired-sounding noise halfway between a sigh and a groan and flopped down on top of the room’s single bed. There were several words that Aiden could have used to describe the bed, but ‘clean’ and ‘sturdy’ would not have been among them. It buckled beneath Jordi’s weight, let out a pathetic sounding groan, as though the weight of a single man was almost enough to send it to the grave, and then something on the bottom of the bed fell to the ground with a ‘thunk’.

“Jesus fucking…” Jordi cursed as he got back to his feet once more. He lashed out, kicking one of the bed’s legs with a bit more force than the bed was capable of withstanding, and the next thing either of them knew the leg was breaking, the bed was tilting and the mattress was sliding onto the floor.

“Well this is just fucking great,” Jordi cursed. “I was tired and just wanted a few hours of sleep, but now I’m going to have to book myself into another fucking hotel first. That’s great. Just fucking fantastic.”

Jordi’s display of anger did not worry Aiden as much as it perhaps should have. He found himself just standing there, watching the other man and continuing to wonder.

“Seriously Jordi,” he began. “Why  _are_ you here?”

“Because you asked me.”

Aiden paused, but only for a moment.

“No I didn’t,” Aiden said.

“Yeah, you fucking did,” Jordi replied. “I mean, not like a normal person would ask someone to fly halfway across the country, but you have to remember Pearce, I know you. I’ve learned to speak ‘Aiden Pearce’ by now. I’ve had to learn it if I wanted to spend any amount of time around you without going insane. You didn’t ring me up just to fucking tell me about… Jesus, I don’t know, Rachel or whatever the fuck her name was. She was an excuse. You just wanted to see me again. It’s going to go a hell of a lot better for the both of us if you just admit that, you asshole.”

With that Jordi sat back down, right on the one corner of the mattress that had fallen completely to the floor.

“All right,” Aiden conceded after only a moment’s thought. Jordi had a point after all. “But you responded by flying out here as soon as you possibly could.”

_What the hell does that even mean?_ he wondered.  _If my reasons for calling Jordi are flimsy then his reasons for flying out here are even more so._

Suddenly everything fell into place, and Aiden froze as it all came together to form a solution that he never would have anticipated.

“You hypocrite,” Aiden said as a smile began to form on his face despite his best efforts to suppress it.

From his less-than-comfortable looking corner of mattress Jordi looked up at Aiden and cocked a single eyebrow in his direction.

“Pardon me?” he asked Aiden. 

“You’re in love with me,” Aiden said.

Aiden’s grin slowly grew. It wasn’t often that he felt like he actually had the upper hand where Jordi was concerned, but not only have the upper hand here, he felt as though he had just won the entire war.

Jordi scoffed and tried to wave aside Aiden’s words, acting as though they were ridiculous, or worse than that, worth absolutely nothing at all. Aiden knew Jordi better than that though. Whether the fixer wanted to admit it or not, Aiden’s words had actually gotten to him.

“You are!” Aiden insisted, unable to stop himself from smiling. He didn’t know whether he was actually happy about the news or whether he just found the irony of the situation hilarious. “You travelled half-way across the country just to see me. You love me.”

“That is the biggest load of bullshit I have ever heard Pearce,” Jordi said. He pushed himself up off the mattress and folded his arms in front of his chest. His attempt to stare Aiden down was a fairly good one, but he was acting too defensively for Aiden to ever be fooled into thinking that he hadn’t scored a direct hit.

“What the fuck would make you think that I have any feelings for you whatsoever except annoyance, mild disdain and despair that you are ever going to look like anything except a particularly attractive homeless person?”

“Not including the fact that you flew all this way at the drop of a hat?” Aiden asked.

“Jesus fucking…” Jordi cursed.

He did not get any further. This time it was one of Aiden’s kisses that silenced Jordi. The fixer was clearly furious, but Aiden was so sure of his conclusion that he found himself feeling strangely weightless and giddy.

For a short while, just a couple of seconds or so, Jordi did not kiss back, and Aiden spent most of those seconds wondering if perhaps he had come to the wrong conclusion after all, and that Jordi was going to pull away at any second.

It didn’t happen though. Soon enough Jordi was kissing Aiden back. Aiden deepened the kiss, insistent and demanding, determined that for once _he was_ going to be the one to break _Jordi_ down. He was going to get the truth out of him. He was going to make Jordi admit that there was more to this than just sex.

When they parted they were both breathing heavily, sucking in air in quick, desperate gasps. Jordi stared at Aiden with eyes that did not seem entirely focussed. Aiden had a suspicion that his own were not much better. His tongue darted out to taste the remains of Jordi’s lips on his own. He had missed the other man’s taste; had missed so much about Jordi, even the things that he would have previously said he hated the most about the other man.

Somewhere during the kiss Jordi’s hands had reached up to grab each side of Aiden’s head and keep him in place. Aiden’s arms had moved up as well to wrap loosely around Jordi’s shoulders. They continued to stare at each other, and then, so slowly that Aiden barely felt as though he was moving, they both leaned forward to initiate another kiss.

The last couple had only served to remind Aiden how much he had missed the taste and feeling of Jordi’s lips against his own. Neither of them held back this time. Their tongues and lips pressed hungrily against one another, and their hands began to roam freely. It wasn’t long at all before Aiden found himself moaning into the kiss.

When they finally parted they were definitely both panting and flushed. When he looked at Jordi Aiden saw the same desperate longing and need that he had felt in Jordi’s absence reflected back at him. One of Jordi’s hands was desperately grasping at Aiden’s hair and caressing his ear. The other was holding Aiden’s chin and neck with such tenderness, as though Aiden was something rare and precious that Jordi could not under any circumstances allow to break.

There was no doubt in Aiden’s mind now. Jordi felt at least _something_ for Aiden, even if he would never admit it. Aiden could almost sympathise with him. He wondered how long Jordi had been aware of it, or whether he really hadn’t managed to admit the truth to himself just yet.

He looked Jordi right in the eye, leaned in close and whispered.

“I love y…”

He didn’t get to finish speaking before Jordi moved one of his hands lightning quick, to place a single finger against Aiden’s lips.

“Don’t say it,” he told Aiden. “You don’t talk about your feelings and I don’t talk about my feelings. That’s the only fucking way that this is going to work Pearce.”

Aiden frowned at the other man. He had struggled with his feelings for Jordi for so long; was still struggling with them. The realization that Jordi felt the same as he did should have made him happy, but instead Jordi was pulling this bullshit, which ultimately left them in an even worse place than if Aiden had just stayed in Chicago and continued to suppress any hint of fondness he felt for Jordi.

“Fuck you,” he spat.

“Oh come on Pearce. Don’t act like you have the moral high ground here. We both know you have the emotional intelligence and maturity of a fucking badger. I don’t do relationships because I’m fucking smarter than that and you’re so fucking terrible at them that you probably  _shouldn’t_  do them so honestly it’s probably better if we leave emotion out of this and just keep the casual sex.”

“Hate to break it to you Jordi, but people don’t usually fly halfway across the country just for a fucking booty call or whatever you’re trying to convince yourself this is.”

“God damn it Pearce,” Jordi said, his hands flying up to tangle in his own hair. “You’re so… so fucking infuriating sometimes!”

And that was the last thing Jordi said before his lips slammed against Aiden’s own in a gesture that was more of an attack than a display of affection. He bit down on Aiden’s bottom lip, making the hacker gasp.

Aiden found himself grabbing Jordi by the front of his jacket, desperately holding onto the other man so that he wouldn’t fall over as Jordi roughly backed Aiden up.

They twisted, their limbs grappling with each other in some sort of dysfunctional parody of a dance, until the two of them ended up falling on top of the dislodged mattress. Aiden fell first with Jordi on top of him, one of his elbows banging painfully against part of the bed frame as he landed.

Jordi’s mouth and hands were keeping him far too occupied for him to be able to stop and check on his elbow however. Already Jordi’s hands were tugging impatiently on Aiden’s jacket, and Aiden couldn’t be entirely sure that Jordi wasn’t trying to undress Aiden as much as tear his clothes off.

Jordi continued to kiss him, pulling back only to breathe, and when the removal of Aiden’s clothing necessitated at least a few inches of space between them. Aiden tried to soften the kisses, to turn them into the sweet, slow things that he found himself craving, but Jordi was desperate, like a man consumed, his tongue plundering Aiden’s mouth and his teeth biting down on Aiden’s lips.

Jordi’s hands grabbed at Aiden, clutching him so hard that Aiden was sure that he would find a few bruises tomorrow, and when he spoke it was with a distant and demanding tone that carried none of Jordi’s usual playfulness.

“You want this, right Pearce?” Jordi asked, and Aiden moaned and said that he did.

“More,” Jordi demanded, and Aiden gave him more.

“Roll over Pearce,” Jordi said, and Aiden did.

For the first time since they had begun all of this, Jordi didn’t call Aiden anything but ‘Pearce’, as though formality might put some desperately needed space between the two of them. It was all so impersonal; more like casual, meaningless sex than anything they had done before, even during that first night by the river.

But Aiden’s body was hungry. It soaked up every touch and ounce of pleasure that Jordi bestowed on it, and he cried out for more. More, more, more. He needed more. He needed Jordi’s bites, even if he would have preferred they were kisses. He needed Jordi’s hands on him, holding him in place, even if he would have preferred that they were caressing him.

More than once Aiden tried to look the other man in the eye, to kiss him sweetly, but Jordi was having none of it, and they ended up switching positions so that Aiden was sprawled face down on what was left of the broken bed, Jordi thrusting into him from behind.

Aiden came with a cry, his body hit with an orgasm as strong and all-consuming as any that Jordi had given him while they had been back in Chicago. He was vaguely aware of Jordi’s arms wrapped tightly around him, and of Jordi following close behind him, but something about it all wasn’t right.

Aiden’s body had been satisfied. His heart had not.

He lay there, gripping the edge of a mattress that he was now beginning to realize was emitting a vaguely unpleasant musty odor, and wondered if this was actually what casual sex was supposed to feel like.

He came to the conclusion that he hated it.

Jordi stayed there for a while, leaning over Aiden, his arms wrapped tightly around him. He didn’t caress Aiden though, or press a kiss to Aiden’s bare skin, even though Aiden desperately wished that he would.

“Kiss me?” he asked Jordi, remembering how early on in their relationship Jordi had insisted that Aiden needed to ask for the things he wanted.

There was no kiss.

“Jordi!” Aiden snapped, twisting around so that he could glare at the other man. “Just one fucking kiss…”

“All right!” Jordi snapped back.

They kissed, although it was a little uncomfortable considering Jordi was still buried deep within Aiden. The kiss started off nice enough, and Aiden found himself relaxing and chasing after the warm softness of the other man’s lips, but then Jordi was biting down on his bottom lip again and Aiden pulled back quickly.

Jordi pulled back as well, his softening cock slipping free of Aiden’s body. Jordi stood up, and Aiden rolled over most of the way so that he could actually face Jordi.

“What the hell was that!?” Aiden yelled as soon as Jordi had climbed off him.

“I’m surprised you need to ask considering how many times we’ve done it,” Jordi said, looking at Aiden with something suspiciously close to anger in his eyes. “That was sex Pearce.”

“Bullshit,” Aiden snapped back.

It had been sex. It had even been, on some level, satisfying sex. Claiming that they had done anything like it before that day however was ridiculous. Jordi’s unexpected roughness Aiden could deal with and even appreciate on occasion, but Jordi had been cruel, distant, as though he was just using Aiden for his own pleasure and didn’t give a shit about the man himself.

”I don’t know what you expect me to say Pearce,” Jordi said, his eyes narrowed in anger; an anger than Aiden knew Jordi should have directed at himself. “That was sex. Nothing more. Nothing less. If you didn’t like it then you can feel free to…”

“Damn it Jordi!” Aiden yelled. “You know as well as I do that what just happened was not normal for us!”

“What the hell do you want from me!?” Jordi yelled back, all traces of calm confidence swiftly fleeing from him in favor of a fierce anger that Aiden had not been anticipating. “If you wanted to talk about your fucking feelings and wanted… I don’t know, sweet kisses and I-love-yous and shit during sex then you came to the wrong fucking guy!”

Aiden’s hand turned into a fist by his side. This was possibly the biggest load of bullshit Jordi had ever tried to sell Aiden. This had stopped being just about sex a long time ago. Whether Jordi was willing to admit it or not, they had both been emotionally compromised long before Aiden had left Chicago.

He didn’t say that though. Of course not. He was too angry, and he knew that Jordi wouldn’t listen.

“Maybe it would have been better,” Aiden said instead, “if the two of us had never slept together in the first place.”

He didn’t know whether he really meant the words or not. He suspected some part of him did. What he had with Jordi couldn’t possibly be worth this much trouble, could it?

“At last,” Jordi replied. “Something we can agree on.”

Aiden didn’t know whether he wanted to punch Jordi or kiss him. At least when Jordi had accused Aiden of falling in love, Aiden had had the good grace to admit that it was true. Jordi was just being a stubborn ass.

Aiden settled for kissing Jordi, his hands grabbing Jordi on either side of his head and holding him still while his mouth crashed against Jordi’s. Their lips pressed against one another for a few seconds, during which Jordi let out a surprisingly vulnerable sounding whimper, and then Jordi was biting down on Aiden’s lip again.

Aiden bit back, and the two of them pulled away from one another with blood smeared all over their mouths. Aiden inspected his own lips with his tongue to find out that at least some of the blood was his.

“Fuck you Pearce,” Jordi snapped. 

Aiden considered coming out with some sort of smart-ass remark in reply but then decided against it. Instead he gathered his clothes up from where they had fallen around the small hotel room, and began to get dressed.

Jordi simply stood there, watching Aiden with his arms crossed in front of his chest, seemingly content to remain naked and making absolutely no move to grab his own clothing.

“Where the hell are you going?” Jordi asked as Aiden’s hand landed on the handle of the door.

“Do you actually want me to stay?” Aiden asked.

Jordi hesitated for what Aiden felt was far too long.

“No,” Jordi eventually said. Aiden could tell without even looking at the other man’s face that it was a lie.

Aiden didn’t call him out on it though. He simply opened the door and stepped right through, and Jordi made absolutely no move to stop him.

* * *

As soon as he was away from the hotel room Aiden found himself gripped by a sudden, almost uncontrollable rage. He stopped for a second and slammed a closed fist against the nearest wall; a thick concrete brick structure that didn’t fold at all beneath Aiden’s punch and just left his hand hurting.

Why did everything with Jordi have to be so complicated? Why did relationships always go so fucking wrong? Why did they have to be so damned difficult, and why couldn’t his heart have picked anyone simpler to fall in love with? He had known that Jordi would be bad news. He had known that and yet he had still let himself fall in love like a fucking idiot.

He punched the wall again, if only to feel something that wasn’t the horrible, aching emptiness and frustration that had built up inside his heart. Was it really so much to ask that Jordi acknowledge there was more between them than lust? That was all that he had wanted, right?

He just wanted Jordi to admit that he loved him; that Aiden was not all alone in feeling these fucked up, useless emotions. He just wanted Jordi to kiss him and to touch him with the same tenderness that he had back in Chicago. The fixer hadn’t seemed to have any problem with it all then, but that _had_ been before he had realised Aiden was in love with him.

He just wanted…

Aiden didn’t know what he wanted, except that it was probably something that Jordi would be unwilling to give.

The next best thing would probably be to hurt somebody.

Luckily Aiden knew of a few Bratva members that he still had unfinished business with.


	5. Compromised: Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Five is huge, so I've split it into two parts. 
> 
> Also just a quick warning that there's a little bit of rape humor from Jordi in this chapter. Nothing too bad, but I thought I'd give you guys a heads up.

Anton Bagdonov was clearly a professional. He had left almost no digital footprint, but with some effort Aiden was able to cross-reference the small amount of data he had managed to extract from Abramov’s computer with what was available on Bagdonov online, and before long he had a lead.

That lead took him to another one, and by the end of the day a trail of leads and only half-reliable information had brought him to a Bratva safe house in which Aiden hoped he would be able to find Anton Bagdonov. He hoped, because if Anton Bagdonov _wasn’t_ inside then he was about to go through an awful lot of trouble for nothing.

There were guards everywhere around the safe house, and Aiden had already seen what Bagdonov was capable of given a half-decent security system. Trying to hack into the safe house’s systems would probably be little better than waving his hands above his head and announcing his presence at the top of his lungs. Trying to take on the many Bratva guards that surrounded the complex was probably only a little saner than that.

None of which meant that Aiden was going to simply back down and slink away with his tail between his legs. A pile of rusted metal that had, once upon a time been a car gave him the extra height that he needed to climb over the chain link fence that surrounded the safe house.

He crept a little further in, picked his target and then struck.

Luckily the Bratva that had been assigned to guard Bagdonov did not seem to be particularly well trained. While it would have made more sense to take the guards down quickly and quietly, Aiden had a lot of pent up rage that he needed to dish out on _somebody_ and the guards’ ineptitude meant that he could take his time, leaving bruises and broken bones before finally knocking them unconscious.

He knew that he was being reckless. He knew that he shouldn’t have been able to get as far as he did, and that it was only the guards’ obvious lack of experience and a great deal of luck that allowed him to make it as far as the ramshackle old building that Bagdonov had set up as his base.

The base itself was hidden in the back of an industrial complex, and the building that Aiden suspected Bagdonov had set up in did not look at all capable of housing the systems that Aiden hoped were inside. He had resisted the urge to hack into any of Anton’s systems yet, knowing that the Bratva hacker was sharp enough that he would probably notice even the most subtle of intrusions.

There was another guard standing just outside the building itself. Aiden suppressed the urge to beat the man into a bloody pulp, instead sneaking up and choking the man into unconsciousness.

He then stepped inside the small central building. It appeared to have been an office of some description before the Bratva had taken over. There was one enclosed office near the back of the building. It was the last one that was large enough to actually house Bagdonov and the sort of operation that Aiden had been hoping to find.  

Aiden drew his gun and approached the door to the office.

The first thing that Aiden saw when he opened the door to the office was the gun that was pointed right at his face. The second was the man that was holding it. It was Anton Bagdonov, which was probably good, but somehow he had clearly worked out that Aiden was coming, which was a lot less good.

Aiden cursed himself beneath his breath. He should have known, or should have at least checked before barging into the room. He had been too loud, or Bagdonov had been watching him. He didn’t know what exactly had gone wrong, but he knew that it was his fault. He hadn’t been cautious enough or quiet enough. He had let his emotions get the better of him. He should have known that Bagdonov would be prepared and that the Bratva wouldn’t make things easy, especially after what had happened at Abramov’s.

“You,” Bagdonov said, gesturing at Aiden with the pistol in his hand. “You’re Aiden Pearce.”

Bagdonov’s accent was still strong. Aiden wondered how long he had been in America, and whether the Bratva might not have brought him over from Russia specifically to help them out.

“You know my face,” Aiden replied.

“Of course,” Bagdonov said with a shrug. He did not lower the gun, and Aiden was already sick of having it pointed at his face. “Every hacker worth their pay knows you. Why do you follow me?”

“You’re working for the Bratva,” Aiden said.

He caught a glimpse of the room beyond Bagdonov, of a room relatively empty aside from a cot, wardrobe and a few other essentials. The only technology in the room was a laptop on a bench nearby. Aiden cursed beneath his breath. He already knew that whatever Project Streamer was, it required a lot more power than what one single laptop could provide.

This was just a safe house, and _not_ where Bagdonov and Project Streamer was based. Damn it. He really had been stupid.

“I’m working _with_ the Bratva,” Bagdonov corrected him, “and we do not like you coming after us Aiden Pearce. We do not like it at all.”

Aiden was given no further warning before the gun in Bagdonov’s hand went off. With such a short distance between them there was no way that Aiden could dodge the shot.

He flinched in shock as the bullet hit home, but one bullet would not be enough to take him down; not one that had been aimed as poorly as Bagdonov’s had. If the Bratva hacker had really wanted Aiden dead then he should have aimed for the head and not the heart.

Aiden brought his gun up and fired a couple of return shots in Bagdonov’s direction. Bagdonov ducked back inside the room, and Aiden heard him shouting, probably into a phone or a radio of some description.

“Damn it,” Aiden muttered.

At first the adrenaline and pure shock of being shot had dampened the pain, but now it was arriving in full force, almost paralyzing Aiden with its intensity. He pressed a hand to his chest and sure enough it came away covered in blood.

He heard Bagdonov end the call and groaned, both from the pain and from the realization that he was in serious trouble. Bagdonov had probably just summoned reinforcements. Aiden needed to get away from the safe house, and quickly, otherwise he was a goner.

Aiden cursed beneath his breath as he began to retreat from the small building. He hadn’t been able to achieve anything; not really. He hadn’t learned anything or taken Bagdonov down. He had at least wanted to barge into the office and take care of Bagdonov before slipping away, but it was too risky, and no matter what the Bratva were up to, or how reckless Aiden was feeling, it wasn’t worth Aiden losing his life.

A sharp burst of pain shot up through Aiden’s entire body at that moment, and he stumbled to the ground right outside of the building. He wasn’t going to be able to make it far; not like this; but he could hear the sound of several men running towards him. He needed to move.

With a much-needed burst of adrenaline he pushed himself to his feet and started to run away from the Bratva hideout.

He didn’t make it far before he heard someone call out behind him, and he heard a bullet whizz past his ear. It had been too close, and Aiden ducked down behind an old, abandoned shell of a car. He heard another couple of gunshots, as well as a cry from at least one of the men behind him.

“Come on out of there you asshole!” someone screamed. “We know you’re hiding behind there.”

Aiden pressed his hand to the gunshot wound again, knowing that he wasn’t going to do much to stem the flow of blood but instinct guiding him to do it anyway. He peeked up over what had once been the hood of the car, and spotted at least four men that were now coming after him, and that wasn’t even including Bagdonov.

He needed a way out, and he needed it _now_.

He hacked directly into the local CTOS, and with one swift hack it all shut down. It was a desperate move. His enemies would lose communication, and with all the lights down it would be difficult for his enemies to see anything in the shadow of the nearby overpass and the larger buildings of the industrial complex, but Aiden would be subjected to the same darkness, and he wouldn’t be able to hack anything either.

The system went down with a shudder and a low, loud ‘thump’ that reverberated in Aiden’s bones. Everything suddenly fell unnaturally silent as all around them a hundred electrical systems all went silent at once. Aiden heard a car screech somewhere in the distance, and heard at least one of the men that had been shooting at him curse loudly.

Aiden took the opportunity and ran. He heard another couple of gunshots following him. One grazed his arm, but luckily none of the others managed to hit.

He ran as fast as he could, heading towards the middle of the industrial complex and hoping that he might be able to lose any pursuers in a maze of warehouses and shipping containers. Eventually, when he could look behind him and neither see nor hear any sign of Bratva members, he ducked into an open and empty shipping container and practically collapsed against the side of it.

Now that he had stopped, the exhaustion and pain hit him all at once. He gasped as he tried to recover his breath.

Aiden looked down at his chest. Oh god, he really was losing a lot of blood. It was streaming down from the wound freely, staining his jacket and dripping onto the floor of the shipping container. He checked outside and realized he had left a small but clear trail of blood behind him. He had to move, or stop the bleeding somehow or do… well… something. He could only hope that the trail hadn’t started until he had been a safe distance away from the Bratva base.

He tried to reach up behind him to check whether or not the bullet had made it all the way through; if the bullet was still stuck inside him then he was completely fucked; but trying to twist his arm in any way that would allow him to touch the back of his jacket was too much for his injured chest and he found himself crying out in pain.

He let his arm fall uselessly by his side for a moment and then, with some effort and more whimpering than he would ever admit, he managed to undo his jacket and shrug it off.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he spotted the hole in the back of the jacket. The bullet had gone clean through, which removed one complication. He was still bleeding heavily though, and the wound showed no signs of stopping any time soon.

He tried to tear the sleeve off his shirt, but he was growing too weak and he was in too much pain, and he ended up giving it up as a lost cause and flopped back against the container wall with an exhausted sob.

He didn’t know what to do. He knew that he needed help, that he wasn’t going to get out of this one on his own. Hospitals were out of the question though; travelling half way across the country hadn’t changed that. 

He was growing fainter and fainter with every breath and knew without even trying that he wasn’t going to be able to get back to his feet.

He grabbed his phone, and with his right hand slippery with blood and his left shaking he somehow managed to call Jordi’s number. 

“Please answer,” he whispered to the empty shipping container. 

Jordi picked up on the third ring.

“What the fuck do you want Pearce?” Jordi answered, sounding more tired than angry.

“I… I need help,” Aiden said, struggling to even say the words. He must have sounded as bad as he felt, because Jordi’s tone immediately changed.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. He could hear the sound of Jordi leaving a building and making his way onto a busy street.

“I went after the Bratva,” Aiden said. “It didn’t end well.”

Jordi cursed beneath his breath and Aiden heard the slamming of a car door.

“Where the fuck are you?” Jordi yelled across the phone line. 

“An industrial park in Oakland,” Aiden replied. “In a… in a shipping container.”

He was growing even fainter now, his eyes threatening to close with every breath that he took. He couldn’t pass out yet though. He needed to wait until Jordi could find him.

“All right,” Jordi said. “I’m on my way but you’re going to have to give me better directions than that when I get closer Pearce. You haven’t given me much to go on.”

Aiden’s phone fell out of his hand and went clattering to the ground beside him. He could just hear Jordi’s frantic calls on the other end of the line.

“Pearce!” Jordi screamed. “What the fuck!? Answer me you asshole!”

Aiden found himself smiling despite the pain. It almost sounded as though Jordi was actually worried about him. The last thing he heard before he passed out was a string of curses coming from Jordi’s side of the call.

* * *

 Aiden hadn’t been entirely sure that he was ever going to open his eyes again, but when he did he found his field of view mostly taken up by the rather concerned features of Jordi Chin.

“Congratulations Pearce,” Jordi said, his relief palpable. “Despite the best efforts of both yourself and those Bratva assholes you went after, you aren’t dead.”

“How did you find me?” Aiden asked, finding the words getting stuck in his throat, which was surprisingly dry and sore. He wondered how long he had been out.

When he looked around the room he discovered that he was not, as he had anticipated, inside the lackluster hotel room that Jordi had hired out, but in what Aiden quickly realized was an abandoned shipping container that Jordi had retrofitted into a safe house. He supposed that even the shittiest of hotels would have something to say if Jordi brought a man bleeding and near death back to his room.

“It was pretty damn easy once I found the trail of blood you left,” Jordi replied. “You’re lucky none of the Bratva found you Pearce.”

Aiden stayed silent. He knew that he had been lucky; reckless and stupid and lucky. By rights he should be dead.

“So what happened?” Jordi asked. He was sitting on the edge of the bed that he had fashioned for Aiden out of what felt like wooden crates and a cheap, thin mattress.

It wasn’t too uncomfortable, but Aiden knew that his experience with this sort of set up was a lot more than most people had, and, judging by the fact that he could barely feel the pain from the bullet wound any more, there was probably a cocktail of painkillers coursing through his bloodstream, so his judgment in such matters probably wasn’t the most reliable.

Jordi shifted closer to Aiden as he spoke, one of his legs pressing gently against Aiden’s side.

Aiden swallowed and discovered that it was surprisingly difficult.

“Water?” he prompted, and Jordi immediately reached down to grab a large bottle that was resting on the floor near his feet.

He helped Aiden sit up and take a drink without so much as a single complaint. He even waited patiently and silently for Aiden to get settled back in before he said anything. Jordi’s eyes glared at Aiden the entire time though, and Aiden couldn’t help but feel as though they were glaring a hole right through him.

Slowly but surely Aiden told Jordi what had happened; about his investigation into the Bratva in San Francisco, about Anton Bagdonov, and about how the Bratva’s asshole of a hacker had managed to get the jump on him.

Jordi’s eyes stayed fixed on Aiden the entire time, observing him intently and clearly taking in every single word that Aiden said. When Aiden finally finished Jordi sat back, took a deep breath, and then turned to Aiden, clearly even more upset than he had been before.

“What the hell were you thinking, going off after that lot by yourself?” Jordi said, raising his voice for the first time since Aiden had woken up. “And while angry? Pearce you idiot! Anger makes you stupid. You do not try to take on that many people when you’re emotionally compromised. No wonder you got shot!”

Aiden went to shrug, but then immediately regretted it as his shoulder and his entire torso reminded him that he had recently been shot and he almost doubled over in pain.

Jordi’s anger immediately dissipated.

“Shit,” he muttered, reaching out for Aiden. “You’re bleeding through your bandages again. I’ll have to change them. Lean forward dumbass.”

The ‘dumbass’ was said with more affection and respect than Jordi had previously used when calling Aiden ‘babe’.

_Still not sure I like it as a pet name though_ , Aiden thought to himself as he nevertheless leaned forward and allowed Jordi easier access to his back and shoulders.

“Lift your arm up,” Jordi prompted, and Aiden did, although that hurt even more than shrugging had.

Aiden found himself staring at the other man in an attempt to distract himself from the burning pain that was travelling all the way up and down his left arm and most of his torso.

“I uh…” he fumbled. “I didn’t realize you knew what you were doing when it comes to this sort of thing.”

Jordi sighed as he finished removing Aiden’s old dressing.

“I’m no expert,” Jordi conceded. “No formal first aid training or anything like that, but I’ve picked up a few things on the job. You never know when the ability to stitch someone up is going to help keep either you or a valuable hostage alive.”

Aiden stared down at the fresh stitches on his chest. They were neat and clinical, just about as perfect as anything Jordi did when he actually gave a damn about the task in front of him.

“Damn it Pearce,” Jordi said as he replaced the blood-soaked dressings on Aiden’s front and back with fresh ones. “You lost a lot of blood.”

“Don’t worry,” Aiden said, looking away. He couldn’t take facing the look of open worry and annoyance that was present on Jordi’s face for any longer than he absolutely had to. “I know the drill. Plenty of fluids and resting up. This isn’t the first time I’ve been shot.”

Jordi was already wrapping Aiden’s torso back up, and manipulated the hacker’s arm a bit more roughly than he had needed to.

“Fuck you Pearce,” he muttered under his breath. “It doesn’t fucking matter how many times you’ve been shot. If I wasn’t there or if I didn’t find you in time then you probably would have died. Asshole…”

They were both silent for a while as Jordi finished what he was doing. Aiden couldn’t bring himself to look at the other man. Jordi’s hands on his wounded body were a confusing mixture of perfectly gentle and cruelly rough, designed to hurt but not to damage, as though the fixer was only barely keeping his emotions in check.

“Thank you,” Aiden eventually found the strength to say once Jordi had finished and he himself was lying back against the makeshift bedding once more.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jordi said, waving the sentiment away. “Don’t mention it. I mean it Pearce. Don’t fucking say you’re sorry. Just do me a favor and don’t go running off half-cocked like that again.”

Jordi made himself comfortable on the floor beside Aiden’s bed, leaning over so that he could run one slightly blood-stained hand down the side of Aiden’s face. Aiden wondered if he should object, but he wasn’t sure that he had the strength to.

“Here you go,” Jordi said, leaning down to grab a large bottle of something that was bright orange and was, judging by the label, very proud of how many vitamins, minerals and electrolytes it contained. “Drink up.”

Aiden did as he was told, and was quite conscious of Jordi watching him the entire time he drank. Aiden still couldn’t get over how somber and serious the fixer currently looked. It wasn’t just the black on black either; Aiden wasn’t sure he had ever seen Jordi look as tired and unhappy as he had over the past few days.

“I like…” Aiden began, but he didn’t get any further before Jordi was interrupting him.

“Don’t you dare fucking say it Pearce.”

“… it better when you wear light suits,” Aiden continued his original thought. “This whole black thing doesn’t really suit you.”

“Really?” Jordi asked, raising an eyebrow at Aiden. “Are you, Mister Aiden giant-fucking-jacket hobo-chic Pearce really giving me fashion advice? And right now? Of all the fucking times…”

“Might be,” Aiden said.

“Well, you might get your wish Pearce,” Jordi said. “You can’t really see it on this shirt because it’s black and all, but you got blood all over my fucking suit. You completely ruined it you asshole.”

Aiden found himself smiling despite himself.

“I didn’t really bring much in the way of a change of clothes either,” Jordi continued, “so now I’m going to have to go out and get new clothes with your blood all over me. It’s a great image Pearce. Very professional.”

Aiden wondered if he should say sorry. He didn’t say anything though. He just lay there, watching Jordi hide his worry with very real annoyance. At least Aiden thought that was what was going on. The thought that Jordi might actually be worried about him was still a difficult one to process.

“Here,” Jordi said, waving some sort of tablet in front of his face.

“What is it?” Aiden asked, screwing up his face.

“A roofie of course,” Jordi said, completely plain-faced. “I know you’re injured Pearce but I’m horny and heaven knows I’d never stand a chance with a fucking catch like you otherwise.”

Aiden rolled his eyes at the other man’s terrible sense of humour.

“It’s a fucking painkiller,” Jordi continued. “What do you think it is? Completely legal but the potent, high-quality stuff. Picked it up when I was buying the bandages and shit. Clearly the last one isn’t working anymore. Come on, open up.”

Aiden rolled his eyes again but swiftly conceded, washing the pill down with another mouthful of orange sports drink.

“I’ve thrown out that gross old jacket of yours too,” Jordi said once Aiden was finished. “Suppose I can buy you some new stuff while I’m out.”

“Do you know how much that cost?” Aiden groaned, finding himself too tired to actually summon any real outrage. “And it was comfortable.”

“It has too many fucking zips and buttons Pearce, and now it has big old blood-stained bullet-holes in it as well,” Jordi complained. “Besides, you’d look a lot hotter if you actually gave a damn about your appearance. You know that right? Beneath the hobo-chic you’re… well…”

He leaned over and ran a hand down the side of Aiden’s face. Maybe it was just the painkillers talking, but when Jordi looked at Aiden in those moments Aiden could actually see how much the other man loved him; the rare openness and vulnerability that showed in his eyes.

“You’re actually pretty fucking cute Pearce,” Jordi admitted, “in a pathetic, ‘I’m lost, please take me home’, puppy dog eyes sort of way.”

It was probably a mistake, but Aiden felt completely safe and relaxed in that moment. At least he did until Jordi started to get up, looking very much like he intended to leave.

“Hey,” Aiden called out, reaching out and grabbing the tail of Jordi’s jacket.

“Stay?” Aiden asked, trying not to wince at the fresh pain in his torso that the simple act of reaching out for Jordi had caused. “Just for a bit longer?”

Jordi stared at him for a moment. Aiden tried to work out what the other man was thinking, but for once in his life Jordi’s face was completely blank, leaving Aiden completely unable to read him.

“All right,” Jordi eventually said, and sat back down on the side of Aiden’s bed.

Neither of them said anything for quite a long time, and for once Aiden didn’t feel as though the silence between them was awkward.


	6. Compromised: Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is it: the final part of Compromised. Thank you all for sticking with me. I hope you enjoyed it.
> 
> I don't think this will be the end for Jordi and Aiden in this universe though. I still have a couple of ideas for exploring Jordi's side of the relationship and what was really going on there during all of this, and I really want to write something with these two assholes interacting with the San Francisco Dedsec crew.
> 
> So, without further ado, I leave you with Jordi and Aiden, and a mission that those of you who have played the DLC for Watchdogs 2 should be pretty familiar with. ;)

Aiden slept a lot over the next couple of days. Sometimes Jordi was there and sometimes he wasn’t. More often than not Aiden could convince the other man to sit with him, at least for a little while. At some stage Jordi left their hideout to acquire new clothing for them both. Aiden smiled when he noticed that Jordi had taken his comment to heart and had replaced his designer suit with a new white one. The shirt was still black, and Aiden secretly missed the red on grey, but it was still an improvement. Jordi really hadn’t seemed like Jordi without his usual flair. When he had come to San Francisco the black on black had almost made it seem as though he was in mourning.

And perhaps he had been. Perhaps he was in mourning for the death of his and Aiden’s relationship. Not that it was dead. Far from it, if the tenderness that Jordi showed Aiden in those days of recovery was any indication.

Neither of them actually said the word ‘sorry’, or at least not with actual words. It would take a miracle for that to happen, but Jordi said it a thousand ways; in the gentle way he helped Aiden get to his feet and make it to the bathroom, in the way he would gently brush Aiden’s hair back from his forehead when he thought that Aiden was asleep. Aiden didn’t say sorry either, but he allowed Jordi his touches, and when he was feeling up to it gave Jordi some of his own in return. Sometimes when Jordi was sitting there with Aiden they would even entwine their fingers, holding onto each other’s hands tightly until Aiden fell asleep once more.

There was one time when, in that hazy, dreamlike place halfway between being asleep and awake, Aiden had felt the press of Jordi’s lips against his forehead.

“I’ll see you soon babe,” Jordi whispered. Or at least, that’s what Aiden had thought he had whispered. He wasn’t even sure that what was happening was real, or whether it was just part of a particularly sweet dream that his sleeping brain had come up with. He liked it, whatever it was.

“Wish me luck,” Jordi, or dream-Jordi muttered.

There was silence for a moment, and then another kiss, this one feather-light against Aiden’s lips.

Aiden smiled. He wanted to say something; perhaps to actually wish Jordi luck, but his sleep-hazed brain couldn’t get his mouth or throat to move in the right way, and he was just so comfortable, and everything was so perfect, and he drifted back to sleep before he could do anything else.

* * *

When Aiden next woke there was no sign of Jordi. He had no way of knowing how long he had been asleep, or whether the kisses and what he now realized had been a farewell had actually occurred. A quick search around the container did not reveal any sign of a note that might explain where Jordi had gone or when he might be back.

When Aiden checked his phone he discovered one new message. He had grown so used to automatically deleting any message he received from Jordi that he almost deleted this one as well, but he stopped himself just in time.

When he opened it he didn’t find much in the way of an explanation.

“Taking care of something,” the message said. “Hopefully I won’t be too long. Rest up.”

That was it.

Aiden had no idea what could be so important that Jordi had to abandon Aiden to immediately take care of it. Surely he hadn’t found employment in San Francisco already?

Aiden had absolutely no idea what counted as being ‘not too long’ in Jordi’s book either. He assumed that Jordi would be back that night though, and he tried to settle back down and not worry too much. He was sure that whatever Jordi was up to, he was more than capable of handling it by himself.

* * *

There was still no sign of Jordi the next time Aiden woke up, and no new messages from him either. Aiden found it a lot harder to settle this time, and soon began pacing around the small container. Eventually it grew to be too stifling, and for the first time since he had been injured, he put on his shoes and socks and left the container, in desperate need of fresh air.

When outside he wished that he had some sort of spare fabric to hand that he might be able to use as a mask, but everything in the container was new and reasonably expensive. Jordi had thrown everything else out. Aiden knew that he wasn’t nearly as easily recognized in San Francisco as he had been in Chicago, but he still felt open and vulnerable.

He needn’t have worried. The container that Jordi had set them up in was hidden beneath an overpass, and while plenty of people were passing by on the busy road above, the only person that might have seen Aiden as he stumbled into the light of day was a destitute and probably homeless old man that seemed more interested in picking through a pile of refuse that had gathered in a nearby ditch than he was in Aiden.

Aiden began to walk, although he was careful not to stray too far from the container. He had been in San Francisco for a while, but the area that he was in now was an unfamiliar one. There wasn’t much in the way of civilization nearby. Their hideout was positioned halfway between a small industrial area and a patch of rocky, untamed woodlands. When Aiden climbed a nearby hill to get a better lay of the land he spotted San Francisco bay just a few blocks away. After he spotted a couple of only vaguely familiar landmarks he realized that they were probably somewhere to the north of Oakland; far enough away from Anton Bagdonov and his Bratva buddies that Aiden probably didn’t have to worry about them finding him.

Still, he couldn’t help but worry. He knew that Jordi would be able to handle himself. Jordi was a professional after all, but Jordi had also been gone for almost an entire day. How long, Aiden asked himself once more, was ‘not too long’?

He couldn’t help but remember that half-awake moment, when Jordi had leaned down and placed a kiss on Aiden’s forehead.

‘Wish me luck.’ Those had been Jordi’s words. At least, Aiden was reasonably sure that had been it. He wasn’t sure that ‘wish me luck’ inspired much in the way of confidence. If Jordi thought he needed a bit of extra luck, then perhaps whatever job he had taken was more difficult than Aiden had originally thought.

He returned to the safety of the container after only spending a little more than an hour outside. His explorations had tired him out much more quickly than he had anticipated, and by the time he returned to the container he was so exhausted that he fell face forward onto the bed and fell asleep almost immediately.

* * *

On the next day, or at least the next time Aiden woke up, there was still no sign of Jordi.

The other man had left plenty of food and other supplies for Aiden. The hacker wasn’t sure that he could bring himself to eat much more than an oat bar, and even that didn’t sit too well in his stomach. After some struggling he even managed to change his own bandages, although he did need an extra painkiller after that, and the process itself had taken a long time.

Aiden really was beginning to worry over Jordi’s fate, and, once the bandage had been changed and Aiden was resting once more, he stepped outside of the shipping container once more and called the other man’s number.

It rang a few times, but Jordi did not pick up.

Aiden told himself that didn’t mean much. If the other man was on a job then he probably _couldn’t_ answer.

Or, and this was the first time he had thought this since Jordi’s abrupt disappearance, maybe Jordi was just giving Aiden a taste of his own medicine. After all, Aiden had disappeared and had refused to answer any phone calls or messages from Jordi. Aiden couldn’t even blame Jordi if that was what he was doing. Aiden deserved it after all. He only hoped that it wouldn’t be three months before he heard from Jordi again.

Aiden took a deep breath and sent Jordi a quick text message.

‘Where are you?’

Aiden waited a few minutes for a reply. When he didn’t receive one he sat down on the nearest patch of relatively clean and flat looking ground and just watched the sun set over the bay. He was sure that he would hear back from Jordi. He had to. If Jordi didn’t return then he didn’t know what he would do; not rest until he found out what had happened to him, probably.

When Aiden’s phone rang nearly an hour later, he had been so deep in thought that the sound made him jump. When he saw the caller ID, Aiden, who felt far more comfortable and at peace when he had his phone in his hand than in his pocket, actually fumbled and almost dropped it.

“Jordi!” Aiden cried out as soon as he answered the phone.

“Hey, I didn’t wake you did I?” Jordi asked. Later Aiden would reflect that it was an uncharacteristically thoughtful thing for Jordi to say, but at that particular moment Aiden’s mind was far too occupied with being angry at Jordi to worry about something so small.

“Where are you?” Aiden asked. He managed to stop himself from yelling the question, but only just.

“That’s a surprise,” Jordi replied cryptically. “You uh… How are you doing? You think you’re up to walking a few blocks by yourself?”

“Sure,” Aiden replied, even though he was full of questions that he wanted to ask Jordi. Where had the other man been? What the hell was he playing at? Did he really think three days counted as ‘not too long’?

“There’s a secluded stretch of shore a bit north of our little hideout,” Jordi continued. “Meet me there in a few minutes?”

“Okay?” Aiden conceded, not exactly sure what it was that he was agreeing to or whether he should actually be agreeing to it.

With that Jordi ended the call, and Aiden was left staring at the phone and wondering exactly what it was that Jordi was planning.

* * *

Aiden took the time to clean himself up a little, and made the trek to the shoreline. It was the furthest he had walked since he had been injured, but he found himself itching to move, and with the help of a painkiller he made it to the shoreline without too much trouble.

Jordi wasn’t there when Aiden showed up, or at least, not at first.

He had been waiting on the shoreline for only a couple of minutes when he spotted a large yacht heading straight for him. Aiden squinted, but there was no sign of anyone on board. It had to be Jordi though, didn’t it?

The boat drew closer to Aiden and the shore. Aiden stood there and waited for the boat to slow down, but it didn’t, and it was only when it started to get very close to dry land that Aiden realized the yacht wasn’t going to stop until it beached itself. In fact it probably would have knocked Aiden over if he hadn’t run to the side as it approached.

The boat shuddered and stopped only when the first few feet of its bow was wedged firmly in the sand and rubble of the San Francisco bay shoreline.

Aiden heard a familiar voice cursing from somewhere within the depths of the vehicle, and then Jordi emerged, slowly and confidently, his hair and suit both in perfect condition except for the few specks of blood that had made their way onto Jordi’s face. Jordi did not look at all out of control, and certainly not like a man who had just seconds earlier been cursing the very expensive boat that he had just beached.

“Hi,” Jordi said, leaning on the side of the boat and sending one of his Cheshire cat grins in Aiden’s direction.

“You’re on a boat,” Aiden remarked.

“Yeah,” Jordi replied. “Bet you never thought I’d be here. What? Don’t give me that fucking look Pearce. That’s how the fucking joke goes, right?”

Aiden couldn’t help but smile, less because of the outdated joke, and more because of how flustered Jordi seemed by his own making it, and, more than any of it, the fact that Jordi was still alive and looked to be completely unharmed.

Jordi swung a ladder down over the side of the yacht. Rather than use all of the rungs however he simply stepped onto the second highest rung and then jumped down onto the gravelly sand below.

He began to stride towards Aiden, his suit and hair and stance and everything about him completely flawless, even the specks of blood, and he was unharmed and Aiden wasn’t sure that he had ever found Jordi more attractive than he did in that moment. He was half-tempted to run up to Jordi, wrap his arms around the other man’s shoulders and kiss him senseless. Perhaps, if they were anyone other than Aiden Pearce and Jordi Chin, then he would have.

“You asshole,” Aiden said instead as Jordi drew close. “Where the fuck were you?”

“Taking care of your Bratva problem. This little beauty here,” Jordi said, pointing at the now thoroughly beached boat behind him, “used to belong to one Anton Bagdonov.”

“Used to?” Aiden asked.

“Yeah,” Jordi said. He began to walk towards the boat, and Aiden fell in line behind him.

“Anton Bagdonov isn’t exactly alive anymore,” Jordi announced, sending Aiden another wide grin.

“You didn’t,” Aiden muttered.

There was no way that Jordi had just happened to be hired to kill the man who had shot Aiden; the odds of that happening were almost non-existent; which meant that Jordi had gone after Anton Bagdonov as revenge for what he had done to Aiden. Because this was Jordi, Aiden suspected that the gesture was actually far more selfish than it appeared at first glance, but nevertheless Aiden found that he was touched.

“I did,” Jordi replied, still grinning and obviously very pleased with himself. “His body’s somewhere out there in the middle of the bay, along with all of the other Bratva assholes I killed, but I did make sure to leave some rather spectacular security footage for the Bratva to discover later.”

Aiden stared at Jordi, not sure what he was supposed to say in response to that, and mildly appalled by the fact that he very much wanted to take a look at that security footage. It had been far too long since he had watched Jordi work.

“Yeah, figured I’d send the Bratva a little message,” Jordi said. “No-one messes with me.”

There was a pause; a few seconds of silence in which neither of them said anything, but a thousand unspoken thoughts passed through the air. After all, the Bratva hadn’t messed with  _Jordi._  Not exactly. 

Jordi cleared his throat.

“Or those I care about,” he added, spitting the words out quickly as though they tasted bad in his mouth.

Aiden smiled regardless. 

“So, I have a boat, at least for the time being,” he said. “You want me to show you around?”

“Sure,” Aiden said, shrugging and trying to look as though he was not as touched by what Jordi had done to the Bratva as he really was.

* * *

The yacht was even bigger on the inside than it had looked on the outside. Not only were there several spacious bedrooms and a full bar, but it soon became clear that the Bratva had been running an entire operation off it. The tech on board put Anton Bagdonov’s little workshop in the industrial park to shame, and after only a moment in Anton’s rooms, Aiden realized that Jordi had probably both discovered and dismantled the heart of Project Streamer.

“Jesus Christ Jordi,” Aiden muttered as he tried to get Bagdonov’s computer back up and running. “What the hell did you do?”

“Fucked if I know,” Jordi shrugged. “I left the hacking and stuff up to the other guy.”

“You needed help? Jordi Chin, are you losing your edge?”

“He was one of the local bleeding heart hacktivists,” Jordi continued, ignoring Aiden’s jab. “He stopped whatever operation Anton was running. I’m assuming you were going after the shit-stain for the same reason as he was?”

“Project Streamer?”

“Fucked if I know,” Jordi replied, gesturing to what had once been Bagdonov’s set-up. “But they were piggybacking off the Streamer servers when I ran into this Dedsec kid, so yeah… Probably.”

Aiden frowned down at what was left of Bagdonov’s computer. Between Jordi’s hacker friend frying the system and Jordi smashing half of it with, by the looks of things, Bagdonov’s face, there wasn’t really much of the machine left. He wasn’t sure if even he would be able to access whatever data was leftover.

Oh well. It wasn’t as though his investigation into Project Streamer had been anything but busywork. Whatever it was, it had been dealt with, although Aiden made a mental note to contact the San Francisco Dedsec cell, if only to satisfy his curiosity and thank them for putting up with what had undoubtedly been Jordi at his worst.

Jordi had made himself comfortable leaning up against a patch of wall that was miraculously undamaged and completely free of blood. He seemed to be waiting for something.

Aiden approached him and rubbed away the small splash of blood that he had spotted earlier. Jordi’s eyes went wide.

“Blood?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Probably Anton’s,” Jordi said with a shrug.

Aiden leaned in and pressed a kiss to the spot he had just cleaned. Jordi rolled his eyes as Aiden pulled back, but did not protest.

Aiden took up a patch of blank wall next to Jordi and pulled out his phone. The one security camera in the room looked to have been destroyed, but while the camera itself was no longer functional, Aiden was able to use its connection to the ship’s onboard security system to access the footage it had recorded before being destroyed.

It only took a little bit of searching to find the clip of Jordi ‘taking care’ of Anton. Aiden watched the footage closely as Jordi slipped into the room, completely unseen. He could have taken Anton Bagdonov out instantly and silently without his target ever knowing Jordi was there. It was what Jordi would have usually done.

Instead Aiden watched as Jordi hoisted Bagdonov from his chair and threw him across the room. Bagdonov attempted to fight back, but he didn’t stand a chance. Jordi pummeled the man, kicking him and punching him and slamming him against nearby surfaces. 

Jordi wanted Anton Bagdonov to be scared before he died. He wanted him to hurt. What Aiden was watching wasn’t professional at all. This was personal.

And Jordi had done it all because Bagdonov had hurt Aiden.

“Oh my god Jordi,” Aiden said, trying not to smile as, in the video, Jordi turned around and fired one perfectly aimed shot at the camera. Jordi was ever the showman. “You do know that you’re a violent psychopath, right?”

“But you love me anyway, right Pearce?”

“Yeah,” Aiden replied without even thinking about it.

The admission took Aiden by surprise, and judging by the stunned look that appeared on Jordi’s face, he wasn’t the only one. The fixer stared at Aiden with wide eyes for a moment, before he shook his head and a wide grin appeared on his face.

“You fucking asshole,” Jordi said.

Aiden waited for him to follow that up with a reminder that neither of them were supposed to talk about their feelings, but it never came. Instead the fixer reached out and grabbed Aiden’s hand. With both of Jordi’s hands cupped possessively around Aiden’s own he brought Aiden’s hand up to his mouth and pressed a gentle kiss to Aiden’s knuckles.

The gesture surprised Aiden even more than his own admission of love had. He wondered if this was the closest thing to a confession of love that he would ever receive from Jordi, and felt his face grow flushed at the thought.

“What the fuck was that?” Aiden asked as Jordi let go of his hand. Despite his words he couldn’t help but smile at the other man as he spoke.

“I don’t know,” Jordi said with a shrug. “You were being an idiot so it was either do that sort of sappy bullshit or throw you overboard.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Aiden scoffed.

“Neither do you,” Jordi immediately replied. “Neither does our relationship. Neither does the fact that for some reason the two of us are standing in a big-ass boat run aground in the San Francisco bay area when there was a perfectly good penthouse apartment in Chicago with our names on it.”

“That place did not  _have our names on it_ ,” Aiden pointed out. “We didn’t…”

“My point is,” Jordi interrupted Aiden by placing a finger on his mouth. “We’re both fucking idiots who probably deserve each other.”

Aiden stared at Jordi for a moment, his green eyes meeting Jordi’s black ones. Then, still keeping eye contact with Jordi, Aiden pressed his lips against Jordi’s finger in a brief kiss. He watched Jordi’s eyes widen, before he hastily pulled his finger away.

“I guess we do,” Aiden conceded.

“What?” Jordi asked, sounding as though the unexpected kiss to his finger had left him more than a little distracted.

“We deserve each other,” Aiden concluded.

That brought a smile from Jordi; and not the usual, wide Cheshire cat grin, but something far softer and more sincere. Aiden admired the sight for a few moments, before clearing his throat.

“So what now?” he asked Jordi. “You’ve dealt with Anton Bagdonov. What’s next for the great and unbelievably irritating Jordi Chin?”

“I don’t know,” Jordi replied. “I don’t really have any jobs lined up, so I suppose it depends on you. Any more Bratva assholes on your shit list that we need to take care of?”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Aiden conceded. “Since leaving Chicago I’ve sort of just been taking things one step at a time.”

“Now that’s an idea I can get behind,” Jordi said. “You think you’ll go back to Chicago?”

“I don’t know,” Aiden replied.

“You know,” Jordi began, “with this baby we could probably go wherever the fuck we wanted.”

He thumped the wall beside him. Aiden couldn’t help but smile again.

“Sure,” the hacker conceded. “If you can get a few extra people to help us push her back into the water and to serve as a proper crew.”

“What, you think the two of us can’t handle her by ourselves?” Jordi asked.

“I can’t pilot a ship this big,” Aiden said, “and judging by the fact that you ran her aground, neither can you.”

“Point taken,” Jordi said with a shrug. “You know, we could just stay in San Francisco for a while.”

“We could,” Aiden conceded.

“You  _do_  need to rest up.”

“I do, and I want to pay the local Dedsec group a visit.”

“Yeah? You know, we could even stay on this boat if we wanted. It even comes with a whole party’s worth of booze and shitty finger food.”

“Might be a bit conspicuous,” Aiden objected. “Someone’s bound to spot it and report it eventually.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. We should probably find another penthouse to stay in.”

“I’m sure I could um… ‘acquire’ another one, at least for a few days.”

“I’m sure one of the assholes on this boat had a nice penthouse apartment that we could borrow. You know, seeing as they’re not going to need it anymore,” Jordi said. That familiar shit-eating grin was back, and Aiden for one was glad to see it. 

“Sure.”

“Although… it would be a shame to let this boat go,” Jordi added, gesturing to their surrounds as he did, “without having sex in it at least once.”

Aiden rolled his eyes at the other man.

“What is it with you and having sex in places where you’ve killed someone?” he asked Jordi.

Jordi shrugged.

“Come on. This is a pretty nice place,” he said, leaning closer to Aiden so that their lips were less than an inch apart. “If you ignore the blood stains and the faint whiff of death and seawater.”

“It is pretty nice,” Aiden conceded, feeling the other man’s breath against his lips as he spoke.

“Wait until you see the bedroom,” Jordi said.

Aiden had expected Jordi’s lips to press against his own, and he found himself closing his eyes in preparation. Instead Jordi pulled back completely, dragging Aiden along behind him as he stormed through the boat, or what was left of it.

“Jordi?” Aiden asked as they passed through a particularly bloody hallway. “Did you kill every single person on board?”

“What? No, just the Bratva goons, and half of their corpses were the work of my Dedsec buddy. Most of the civilians had enough of a self-preservation instinct to head for the lifeboats as soon as I told them Anton was dead and that I was taking over.”

“Of course that wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that you threatened to kill them if they didn’t?” Aiden suggested.

“It might have,” Jordi conceded. Aiden wondered if perhaps he was beginning to know the fixer and his habits a little too well.

“Well, here we are,” Jordi said, opening the door on a bedroom that was quite elaborate and beautiful considering they were still on board a boat. “It’s not a penthouse apartment, but I think it will do for a night or two.”

Aiden was inclined to agree, but before he could think of what to say Jordi was entwining their fingers in a way that was quite distracting, and leaning in close, and then of course they were kissing, and this kiss was sudden and glorious and Aiden found himself moaning into it almost as soon as it began.

Their hands and fingers stayed entwined between them, and they traded kiss after kiss, keeping their lips locked together more often than not, as Jordi slowly dragged Aiden over to the bed.

Aiden wondered whether he should have taken a painkiller or two before allowing Jordi to drag him to the bedroom. After all, they were usually pretty rough when having sex, and Aiden doubted that his injured chest would be able to support him throughout an entire session with Jordi without at least some pain.

He tensed, preparing himself for the inevitable clashing of limbs and mouths as they fell into bed together, but it never came. Instead Jordi pulled back from the kiss, sat down on the side of the bed and then, very gently, pulled Aiden down into his lap.

His arms came to wrap around Aiden’s torso, low enough that they would not disturb Aiden’s bullet wound, and pulled him close. His mouth descended on Aiden’s neck, planting kiss after kiss there, before roaming to seek out his chin and ear as well.

Aiden gasped and ground against Jordi’s lap. Jordi’s lips continued to dance over Aiden’s skin, kisses soft and gentle and loving. His hands snaked beneath the white cotton of Aiden’s shirt, moving up and tracing the curve of Aiden’s back, but stopping before they reached the edge of Aiden’s bandages. They then began a slow trek back down, where they dipped beneath the edge of Aiden’s trousers, snuck into his underwear and gently caressed Aiden’s rear.

Aiden wrapped his arms around Jordi’s shoulders, moaned and whimpered and rocked in Jordi’s lap. Before long he was so hard that it hurt. This wasn’t a type of intimacy that he was used to, and definitely not something that he had thought he might enjoy with Jordi one day. Jordi was being so soft and gentle with Aiden, as though he was a priceless, precious thing that might break if Jordi wasn’t careful.

Aiden could feel Jordi through their pants, his cock just as hard and erect as Aiden’s was, both of them already aching to be free of their trousers. Aiden whimpered and arched his neck, trying to give Jordi easier access. Jordi took it, kissing and licking at Aiden’s neck and even biting, although even the bites that he placed there were more gentle scraps of teeth on skin rather than anything that might leave a mark.

Jordi pulled back and stared up at Aiden, looking at the hacker as though he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. In that moment, seeing his own lust and wonder and need and yes, even love, no matter how fiercely Jordi might deny it, reflected back in the other man’s gaze, Aiden found that he could actually believe that Jordi thought he was as precious and perfect as his touches might lead Aiden to think.

“Aiden,” Jordi gasped. It sounded strange, almost alien to hear his first name coming from Jordi’s lips.

It was always ‘Pearce, Pearce, Pearce’ with him, as though the formality of Aiden’s last name was necessary to keep their professional relationship from devolving into the ugly mess of emotions and mutual need that it now was.

Perhaps this downward spiral; this compromise between the two of them had been inevitable from the start. Perhaps Jordi had been aware of the electric, unspoken potential between the two of them long before Aiden had. Perhaps he had known about it even before The Incident, but unlike Aiden he had been smart enough to leave it alone; to ignore it, at least until he had not been able to ignore it anymore, and with one inappropriate touch and one proposition, had started to break down the wall between them.

“Jordi,” Aiden whispered, and then they were kissing again, the kiss deeper but just as gentle and loving as it had been before.

Jordi’s hands roamed down, his fingers drifting over Aiden’s stomach in a gentle caress, before he reached the bulge that had formed in the front of Aiden’s pants. He groped Aiden through the fabric a couple of times.

Aiden pulled back from the kiss with a cry. He then found himself arching up into the other man’s hand, desperate for more.

“Jordi,” Aiden breathed the other man’s name again, but this time it came out half-strangled and desperate.

Jordi grinned at Aiden for a moment, and then leaned in, capturing Aiden’s mouth once more.

“Hey babe,” Jordi whispered as he pulled back from the kiss. “Do you want to have some fun?”

“Yes?” Aiden replied, wondering what the fuck Jordi was on. Of course he wanted to ‘have some fun’ with Jordi. Wasn’t that the whole point of this?

“Good,” Jordi murmured, his lips caressing Aiden’s own in the ghost of a kiss.

His hand massaged the rapidly forming erection in Aiden’s pants, and any confusion Aiden might have felt at Jordi’s earlier actions swiftly fled to be replaced with nothing but lust and need and somewhere behind all of it, love, and the simple relief he felt at everything seeming to be back to normal as far as his relationship with Jordi was concerned. 

Aiden reached for Jordi’s belt and began to unbuckle it. He had gotten as far as starting to pull Jordi’s now unzipped pants down before one of Jordi’s hands moved to grab hold of one of Aiden’s. He had just been about to wrap it around Jordi’s erection, but for some reason Jordi had gently but firmly put a stop to that.

Jordi pulled back from what had been a strangely deep but slow kiss.

“Not yet,” Jordi murmured, his voice deep and broken from lust.

Aiden wondered what Jordi was planning, or whether he was planning anything about this at all. Whatever was going on, Jordi wanted to take things a little slower this time, and Aiden was more than happy to do just that.

Jordi moved Aiden’s hand up to rest on Jordi’s chest, right near his heart. Aiden ran his hand over the other man’s still-clothed form, his fingers sneaking beneath the rich fabric of Jordi’s jacket, and the thumb moving to toy with one of his buttons. Jordi let out a sigh of encouragement, and then, together, they shrugged off Jordi’s jacket.

Aiden moved his hand to the top button of Jordi’s shirt, and glanced up at him, wordlessly asking whether the other man would be fine with Aiden beginning to undress him. Jordi tipped his head in a subtle gesture that was probably supposed to be a nod and then leaned forward to press a gentle kiss to Aiden’s cheek.

Aiden started to undo the other man’s shirt, slowly, one button at a time, the seconds or minutes between each one peppered with kisses and gentle caresses.

Eventually Jordi’s shirt was removed, and then Aiden’s, and still they kissed and caressed as though they had all the time in the world.

Jordi’s arms moved to wrap around Aiden’s back once more, cradling him and pulling him closer.

“Lay down babe,” Jordi whispered against Aiden’s lips.

Aiden nodded, and let Jordi guide him so that he was laying down on the bed. It was luxuriously soft, and Aiden felt himself sink into a pile of soft blankets and even softer pillows. All the while he found himself completely absorbed by the sight of the man hovering over him; a man who continued to stare down at Aiden and touch him as though he was something precious.

Jordi removed his own pants; the process swifter and far more efficient than any of their other touches or movements had been, and then turned his attention back to Aiden, that dark, meaningful gaze landing on the hacker once more.

Aiden felt pinned to the bed by that gaze, and he was completely unable to look away as Jordi started to undo Aiden’s pants and then pull them down. He still held Jordi’s gaze as Jordi leaned down and then, incredibly deliberate in his eye contact, grabbed the rim of Aiden’s boxers in his teeth and pulled them down.

Aiden’s eyes slammed shut then. He was no longer able to hold eye contact with Jordi. Not when he was pulling moves like that. The move with Jordi’s teeth and Aiden’s boxers had been one that Jordi had pulled on him during their first night together by the river, and it was one that had featured far too heavily in Aiden’s fantasies of the other man ever since.

By the time Aiden next felt capable of opening his eyes once more Jordi had flung Aiden’s underwear to some unknown corner of the room.

It wasn’t just Aiden’s either. Aiden caught a glimpse of Jordi’s cock, just as naked and erect as Aiden’s own now, before Jordi was leaning back down, his mouth about to descend on…

Oh god. Aiden’s eyes slammed shut once more as Jordi’s lips wrapped around the tip of Aiden’s cock. The pleasure was almost too much by itself after missing Jordi for so long. He wasn’t sure that he could watch Jordi sucking him off as well; not if he wanted to last any longer than a couple of minutes.

If Jordi’s movements were any indication then he wanted to take his time as well. When he started to move his mouth up and down Aiden’s cock it was at a pace that was almost infuriatingly, torturously slow. Before long Aiden was moaning and begging and squirming.

His eyes finally opened, and he looked down at Jordi, their eyes meeting for a moment right before Jordi took every inch of Aiden’s cock inside of his mouth in one slow, steady movement that had Aiden cursing and having to focus far too hard on not coming right then and there.

Jordi placed a hand on Aiden’s stomach, gentle but firm in an effort to calm him. Aiden had forgotten all about his own injuries, but it was clear that Jordi hadn’t. Jordi didn’t move at all for a while; just knelt there with Aiden’s cock almost completely engulfed in his mouth as he waited for Aiden to still, and then, when Aiden’s breathing had reached a pace that was a little closer to being healthy and normal, Jordi resumed bobbing up and down on Aiden’s cock.

It was all so good; so perfectly pleasurable that Aiden barely noticed Jordi’s hands shifting, guiding Aiden’s hips up a little, at least until he felt a couple of Jordi’s fingers pushing inside of his rear.

Aiden squirmed, unable to stay still while Jordi was doing so much to him. Jordi’s two fingers curled inside him, finding that particular spot inside of Aiden so quickly and with such precision that Aiden screamed and bucked up into Jordi’s mouth.

Jordi let out an appreciative hum that sent a small wave of vibrations through Aiden’s cock and had him letting out a groan that sounded almost as desperate as the scream had.

Jordi pulled off Aiden’s cock and grinned up at him as the two fingers inside of Aiden continued to massage Aiden’s prostate.

“Careful babe,” Jordi said, sounding like he was only half joking. “Wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself, would we?”

Not that Jordi showed any signs at all of stopping what he was doing to Aiden. His mouth returned to Aiden’s cock, where he began sucking the tip so hard that Aiden was sure he wasn’t going to last much longer.

It all seemed so perfect and so familiar, as though he was made for Jordi to do this to him. Although, perhaps it was something else as well. It seemed a little _too_ close to some of Aiden’s fantasies for it to be a complete coincidence.

When Aiden realized what was happening he felt like an idiot.

“This is…” Aiden didn’t realize he had said the words aloud until Jordi looked up at him, at the surprise and wonder on his face and pulled off Aiden’s cock. The fingers inside of him stilled as well, and Aiden let out a groan of disappointment.

“What?” Jordi asked him. “You were saying something, and it didn’t sound like it was going to be ‘this is the best fucking feeling in the world. Oh please don’t stop what you’re doing Jordi.’”

“This is just like The Incident,” Aiden said.

“The Incident?” Jordi asked, clearly confused, and Aiden immediately cursed his own stupidity. Why the hell had he actually referred to it as The Incident, as though Jordi was going to have any clue in the world what he was talking about?

“That first night, by the river in Chicago,” Aiden explained. “You’re doing the same things. We’re even near water.”

Jordi grinned up at Aiden, and Aiden realized that the replication of that night had been completely deliberate.

“Got a much better bed this time though,” Jordi pointed out.

Aiden wondered why Jordi might be inspired to do such a thing.

“A new beginning?” Aiden asked.

“More like an attempt to improve the old one.”

“I wasn’t aware that anything about it needed improving,” Aiden said. No, as far as he was concerned that night had, in retrospect, been absolutely perfect. He considered telling Jordi that Aiden’s thoughts had lingered on The Incident for weeks after, his mind replaying the events over and over.

“How about the fact that this time I don’t feel like I’m pushing you into anything?” Jordi replied, and Aiden realized that the other man sounded quite serious about the whole thing. Had Jordi actually been worried about that the first time? He hadn’t gone away thinking that he had  _forced_  Aiden, had he? All right, so perhaps Aiden had taken some convincing, perhaps Jordi  _had pressured_  him a little, but…

“I’m glad you pushed,” Aiden said.

“Damn it Pearce,” Jordi muttered. “You shouldn’t say shit like that. Asshole.”

Aiden wasn’t entirely sure what Jordi’s problem was with what he had just said, but at that moment he couldn’t really care, as long as Jordi continued what he had been doing.

“You going to continue?” Aiden asked, threading one hand through Jordi’s hair and trying to gently guide the other man back down to where Aiden’s cock was now desperately seeking attention.

“Only if you want me to,” Jordi replied.

“Please?” Aiden tried. After all, that was what Jordi had been looking for on that first night by the river.

That was all it took. Aiden could see the sharp inhale of air and the arousal that shot through Jordi’s body at the sound of that one, simple word.

“You got it,” Jordi said. Then, with a wink, he was leaning back down to take Aiden in mouth again.

Aiden couldn’t remember much about the head that Jordi had given him on that first night; just that it had been mind-blowingly good. It couldn’t have been  _this_ good though, and Jordi couldn’t have been  _this_  skilled, otherwise there would have been no way that Aiden would have been able to stay as quiet as he had, or resist pursuing Jordi with the hopes of another hook-up for as long as he had. Perhaps it was just that stupid part of his brain that had fallen in love with Jordi speaking, or perhaps it was just the fact that with the exception of that one, violent encounter in the hotel, Aiden hadn’t slept with Jordi in months, but whatever it was, Aiden was in heaven at that moment.

Jordi’s fingers slipped back inside Aiden, and within seconds they had found that sweet spot inside Aiden again and were stroking it mercilessly.

Aiden let out a scream as Jordi’s fingers crooked just right. Jordi hummed happily as he continued to bob up and down on Aiden’s cock, the vibrations adding to what was already an almost overwhelming amount of pleasure.

“Oh god… no,” Aiden murmured as Jordi continued to suck and swallow. “Jordi… Mmmm…. I’m not… I’m not supposed to come yet. That’s not… That’s not how it went.”

Oh god. He was so close. Between Jordi’s mouth and Jordi’s fingers Aiden knew that he would lose himself at any second. He held onto it though. He couldn’t. Not yet.

Just when Aiden was sure he couldn’t take any more without coming, Jordi pulled off Aiden’s cock. He grinned up at Aiden and Aiden’s heart seemed to thud even more powerfully within his chest than it had before.

Jordi kissed the side of Aiden’s cock and then shuffled himself up the bed, his body touching Aiden’s own in a disappointingly small number of places. Aiden found that he couldn’t do much more than stare at the other man.

“So remind me Pearce,” Jordi said, rolling his shoulders and licking his lips in a way that put Aiden in mind of some sort of predatory big cat on the prowl, ready to strike. “What came next?”

Aiden swallowed, finding his throat unexpectedly dry.

“You…” he murmured, feeling himself flush as he tried to speak. “You fucked me.”

“That’s a bit vague, isn’t it?” Jordi asked. “Besides, ‘fuck’ seems like such a crude word for what’s about to happen here.”

Aiden was half tempted to say something like ‘hurry up and stick your fucking dick in my ass’ just to piss Jordi off. Perhaps the Aiden Pearce of a year ago would have done precisely that. Not now though.

“Make love to me?” Aiden tried instead, because he was feeling particularly brave.

If he didn’t know any better, Aiden would have guessed that his words actually managed to take Jordi’s breath away. The other man froze and just stared, wide-eyed at Aiden for a moment, until Aiden reached up to run his fingers through the other man’s hair once more.

“That’s… um…” Jordi fumbled, his tongue darting out to moisten his lips for a moment. Oh god. It seemed like he really  _was_  speechless. That was definitely a new phenomenon as far as Jordi went.

“That’s not actually any more specific than the last one was,” Jordi said. The sincere smile that he sent beaming down at Aiden let the hacker know however that the comment had nevertheless been appreciated.

“Jordi,” Aiden growled.

“Yes?” Jordi replied, grinning like an idiot.

Aiden beckoned for Jordi to come closer. As Jordi leaned down Aiden pushed himself up a little so that he could whisper right into Jordi’s ear.

“If I remember correctly,” Aiden began. “What happens next is…”

“Yes?”

“What happens next is you push inside me so slowly that it’s torture for both of us, inch by inch, until you’re all the way inside me.”

This time Aiden definitely heard the other man’s breath hitch.

“And then you make love to me, slow and deep, until the both of us lose our minds and I beg for more.”

“Jesus fucking Christ Pearce,” Jordi gasped.

Aiden grinned triumphantly and then lay back down on the bed.

“So, are you going to get to that or are you all talk?” he asked, delighting in how flustered he had managed to make Jordi.

Jordi stared down at Aiden, chest heaving, his eyes even darker than normal with blatant lust and need.

He leaned down, capturing Aiden’s mouth in a brief, bruising kiss that was the roughest out of any touches that he had given Aiden that day, before pulling back.

“I am going to make you feel so good they’re going to hear your screams back in Chicago,” Jordi promised.

This time it was Aiden who suddenly found it difficult to regulate his breathing. He could remember the last time; could remember falling apart in Jordi’s hands, moaning and begging and barely recognizing himself as he pleaded for the other man, and that had been before Aiden had fallen in love with him.

He hadn’t recovered when he felt Jordi pressing inside of him. It was just the tip at first. He moved just as slowly as he had promised, and was even more gentle than Aiden had expected.

As Jordi moved Aiden quickly found himself torn. The first time that they had slept together he had mostly lain there beneath Jordi and let the other man metaphorically pull him to pieces. This time however he wanted to reach out; to pull Jordi close and never let go. He craved intimacy, but at the same time he found himself already strangely invested in the scenario that Jordi had set up.

At the end of the next slow thrust Jordi whimpered, letting Aiden know that the other man was just as affected by all of this as Aiden was. He almost collapsed on top of Aiden, but caught his own weight in time, and leaned down to mouth hungrily at the skin on Aiden’s neck.

That was it. Aiden couldn’t take it anymore. Accuracy be damned. He needed to be closer to Jordi. This was supposed to be The Incident but done better, and better meant more Jordi, meant more touching, meant being closer and actually allowing himself to love this infuriating man. Aiden wrapped his arms tightly around Jordi and held him close. He spread his legs wider, welcoming Jordi inside and moaned when Jordi took advantage of the new position to push, slowly and carefully, deeper inside Aiden.

Together they set up a pace that was slow and careful. Despite how desperate Aiden was for more, he knew that Jordi was being mindful of Aiden’s injury, probably more mindful than Aiden himself was, and that was enough to touch him, to give him hope that maybe Jordi was just as in love as Aiden was.

Jordi seemed to focus almost entirely on Aiden as well; on hitting Aiden’s prostate and giving him as much pleasure as possible. Whenever Aiden asked for a kiss, either verbally or with hungry lips that chased after Jordi’s own or a tilted neck that exposed skin that was just begging for Jordi’s mouth to descend upon it, Jordi responded eagerly, devouring Aiden’s screams and leaving kiss after tender kiss all over Aiden’s face and neck and shoulders.

By the end of it Aiden could barely breath; could barely think. There was nothing but Jordi’s touches and Jordi’s kisses, and those dark, dark eyes that stared right down into Aiden’s soul whenever they weren’t closed in pleasure. Aiden felt as though he was drowning; in Jordi’s eyes and in the pleasure Jordi was giving him. It was all too much; too perfect, and he soon realized he was crying.

“Pearce, babe,” Jordi whispered, leaning down to kiss the tears away. “You all right? I’m not hurting you am I?”

He stilled inside Aiden, at least for a moment, and Aiden cried out in desperation.

“Oh god Jordi,” Aiden begged. “Don’t stop. Please don’t stop. Please, just keep…”

He clutched at Jordi, pulling him down for another kiss. Jordi seemed to get the message and made himself at home inside of Aiden’s mouth and body once more.

When they both came it was not with the loud, wordless scream that Aiden had let out the first time. Instead he merely let out a whimper that was quickly smothered by Jordi’s lips. Aiden’s orgasm was less a climax and more a slow, gentle release from the almost overwhelming pleasure that he had been drowning in up until then, and it was still incredible, far more amazing than it had any right to be.

As he came down he was vaguely aware of Jordi burying his head in Aiden’s neck, of his hips stuttering and his breath catching.

“Pearce,” he murmured into the crook of Aiden’s neck. “Oh fuck… Pearce.”

Jordi clutched onto Aiden like a lifeline, and even though he never said the words, Aiden heard them in the way Jordi held onto him, in the way his lips had pressed so gently against Aiden’s skin. He had missed this just as much as Aiden had; had missed making love (because there was no denying that was what this was now), had missed the way that their bodies fit together so well. Aiden wondered if maybe, like him, Jordi had missed simply being around each other.

It was stupid and frustrating but Aiden was just so happy and comfortable like this.

They stayed there for a long time, limbs intertwined and sweat and the evidence of their lovemaking smeared over their skin. Aiden didn’t mind. In fact he wasn’t sure that he ever wanted to leave this moment.

“Stay with me this time,” Aiden pleaded as he clung to Jordi with all of his might.

“Only if you stay as well,” Jordi murmured, one hand clasping onto Aiden’s rear possessively, the other wrapped around his shoulders, the combined effect being that Aiden was pressed quite comfortably against the other man’s side.

“I’m not going anywhere this time,” Aiden promised. “Not without you.”

Jordi let out a short, quiet laugh in response to that; the sort of laugh that didn’t suggest amusement at all.

“What sort of co-dependent bullshit is this?” Jordi asked as his thumb ran over the bandage on Aiden’s chest.

“How the fuck should I know?” Aiden replied. “You’re the one who followed me here and then insisted on going after Anton Bagdonov.”

“Well yeah,” Jordi immediately replied. “I lost a perfectly good suit because of that asshole, not to mention the time I spent fucking nursing you back to health. Don’t even start me on the amount of bullshit I had to go through to actually find the guy.”

Aiden almost opened his mouth to accuse Jordi of being in love with him again, but then Jordi’s words came back to him. ‘I don’t talk about my feelings and you don’t talk about your feelings. That’s the only fucking way that this is going to work.’ Aiden wasn’t entirely sure that was true, but nevertheless he suppressed both the comment he wanted to make and that small, irritating part of him that just wanted to open up and say that cursed L-word for real, damn the consequences.

Because he was in love with Jordi Chin. It still seemed stupid to him and he was convinced that he had the worst taste in men in the world. How else could he explain why he felt so absolutely safe and comfortable, lying there in the arms of a psychopath in a boat on which had been practically bathed in blood? It was perfect bliss, and before long he found himself relaxing completely, nuzzling into Jordi as he slipped into sleep’s sweet embrace.

“And of course you’re fucking falling asleep,” Jordi said, albeit with a smile still on his face. “What is it with you falling asleep right after we have sex? Do I wear you out that much Pearce?”

“I’m comfortable,” Aiden said against Jordi’s skin, although he had a feeling the words were completely indecipherable. He  _was_  comfortable though. The most comfortable and secure and relaxed that he had felt for a very, very long time.

“Yeah, of course you are,” Jordi said, and it sounded at least a little like a complaint.

“Besides,” Aiden murmured, “that’s how this went the first time. Have to replicate every little bit…”

“Just let me…” Jordi muttered, as he shifted a little beneath Aiden, moving one arm so that it was no longer pinned by Aiden’s body and wrapped it loosely around Aiden’s bare shoulders instead. One of his legs shifted as well, entwining with Aiden’s own in a different position than before.

Jordi repositioned them so that Aiden’s head was tucked beneath Jordi’s own, placed a brief kiss on Aiden’s forehead, and then seemed to settle.

“Right,” he said, seemingly content with his work. “I’m comfortable now too. Sleep away Pearce.”

It was another one of those rare moments in which Jordi sounded completely sincere and nearly as content as Aiden felt. He found himself smiling softly as he relaxed against the other man’s body. He had forgotten how nicely the two of them fit together.

“I love you…” Aiden murmured as his eyes closed once more.

Perhaps it was just his imagination. More than likely it was just a dream, but right before Aiden drifted off to sleep he swore he could feel Jordi’s lips pressing another gentle kiss to his forehead.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jordi muttered. “Me too you asshole.”


End file.
